Free Childcare Entitlement

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I will certainly keep these matters under review. Indeed, I have a meeting with Suffolk MPs either this week or next week, because their funding is different from that in Norfolk, which is always a matter of contention.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I respect the Minister, who is making a valiant effort to defend an outstanding policy with holes in it, the biggest of which is funding. One group who have not been mentioned in this debate is childminders, including those in my constituency, who are highly qualified, are often women, have a level 3 national vocational qualification and have been Ofsted assessed. I have been categorically told by a number of my constituents that the county council funding provided from money given by central Government is inadequate. Many of them say that unless that is remedied they will have to pull out of the business. Can the Minister at least assure me that he will review the whole funding arrangement in the coming first quarter?

[Mr Goodwill]

I will certainly continually keep this under review. Councils are encouraged—indeed, they have committed—to pass on 90%. They have some administrative costs, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, but we will close that gap as the system matures.

Careers Advice (14 to 19-Year-Olds)

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I appreciate the opportunity to debate what I and obviously the many others present in the Chamber consider a tremendously important issue. I chair the all-party group on further education, skills and lifelong learning, and believe that reforms and further improvements to careers advice for 14 to 19-year-olds are still needed. The matter is an important one, which will clearly shape future job sectors and markets in the UK for better or worse.

Many of us will have memories of the careers advice that we received. I am sure that today it is better than it was in my day, but it is an issue that comes up pretty consistently—only yesterday I was talking to some young people when I had a visit from my local college, Sussex Downs. Careers advice is one of those issues that MPs who have employed or hired people, or been hired, know is crucial. Yet we have known for a long while that it has not been as good as many of us think it should be. It is a profoundly important issue, particularly as we are clearly in an ever-more globally competitive society.

Good and appropriate careers advice is crucial and we are not where we should be yet. There have been pluses in the past decade, but I profoundly believe that there have also been weaknesses. As I shall explain, some of what the Government have done has improved things, but there is a need to go further. As we are approaching the general election I am waiting to hear also from our Opposition Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), whom I am delighted to see here. There are many colleagues in the Chamber and they will make suggestions, and this is an opportunity for both the Front Benchers to consider them and come up with further improvements to careers advice after the election.

We all understand that our children deserve comprehensive and fully informed careers advice, so that pupils can make informed decisions. That is more complicated now than in my day because there are many more jobs. Swathes of career opportunities exist now that did not when I was young; but that brings its own complexities. If young people are not informed properly and intelligently about the wide range of jobs, how can they make an informed choice? They cannot, and that is a terrible waste.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that young people be given access to the kinds of businesses they might be interested in, and that that applies particularly to engineering? Then, they can get the taste for it and choose the right subjects to study in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd]

I entirely agree. Engineering is a good example, not least from a gender perspective. I still find it astonishing that even in my constituency, despite the number of engineering firms there—particularly to do with pumps, curiously enough—applications are rarely received from young women in Eastbourne. That is simply because they are not told about the opportunity.

Clearly, more needs to be done for children aged 14 to 19 so that they are better aware of the choices available after secondary school and, subsequently, sixth form or college. At the moment, according to recent research compiled by the Association of Colleges, 63% of young people can name A-levels as a post-GCSE qualification; but few could name the other choices. I find it profoundly frustrating—as I have spent the past four and three-quarter years going on about it—that, for example, only 7% of pupils could name apprenticeships as such an alternative qualification to A-levels. That is ludicrous.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that Ministers should prioritise the introduction later this year of the proposed new UCAS-style one-stop shop for young people who do not want to go to university—a system to prevent their entering the category of “not in education, employment or training”?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I completely agree. Such initiatives can be a game changer for many young people and improve their understanding of the length and breadth of the opportunities open to them.

To return to apprenticeships, I repeat that the research showed only 7% could name them as an alternative qualification. The challenge is that the vast bulk of teachers will obviously have gone to university. They are graduates who have become teachers. They are skilled in that area and can talk about university and the advantages of a degree. For obvious reasons they are not skilled-up in the matter of apprenticeships. They often know little about them unless they are told.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I hear from young people in universities and further education colleges in Northern Ireland that they believe careers officers—not all of them, but a lot of them—are ill-equipped to do the job. We need to address that. Another comment is that we need a closer working relationship with industry and young people. It is said that the attitude of young people coming out of education to go into work is not what it should be. If there could be day release with companies, for example, at an early stage—from 14 onwards—it would make a difference.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I concur very much with that intervention.

There is an issue to do with careers advice that I find extraordinary. We all understand the importance of good careers advice and careers officers, and I have always found it slightly odd that Governments of either side have never made a song and dance about them, or applauded or provided incentives or reward programmes for very successful careers officers. A really good careers officer can play one of the most significant of roles in a young person’s career or future. Yet I have never seen in the paper a picture of Jane Smith or John Doe as the best careers officer in the south-west, rewarded by the Prince of Wales. I hope hon. Members see what I mean; the role should be much more of a career. We should get the best people, who should be rewarded. They should be financially rewarded even better than they are, but more importantly there should be a sense that it is desirable for talented and able people to become careers officers. If we could get to that situation, it would make a difference.

[Neil Carmichael]

To move away from that theme slightly, does my hon. Friend agree that university technical colleges provide a good launch pad for careers? Getting that training, in engineering, for instance, with the support and involvement of businesses, is in itself a useful careers advice process.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Yes, I agree, with one caveat. The principle of UTCs is good, but I would like them to be clear about working closely with further education in their area. For decades, one of this country’s challenges with the issue has been that changes and improvements have often been fragmented. UTCs are a good example of that. I admire Lord Baker’s good work on them, but some of them already appear to be acting in silos without the local FE colleges and other training groups, and that is a mistake. I take on board my hon. Friend’s intervention, but, because he has good links with the UTCs, I ask to him to remind them to work closely in partnership with others.

Partnership was mentioned, which is crucial in careers. When partnership works, we can get young people into the right jobs and give them the right opportunities to understand what is available out there across the piece with FEs, UTCs, business and schools. That gets a successful outcome, but with fragmentation in silos we do not get that.

As MPs we are often told, and we recognise, that there is a growing skills gap in the workplace. A recent piece, I think in the Financial Times, highlighted that again and we know that is a problem and a challenge. When it comes to universities, everyone holds the same qualifications after graduating and a high proportion of young people compete furiously for the same jobs, while other sectors such as engineering, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) talked about earlier, struggle desperately to entice and recruit people into their profession.

My whole background was in business before I entered politics and I am convinced that, nine times out of 10, the problem is ignorance: young people simply do not know about the wide range of different opportunities and jobs. There are many ways to deal with that, but they come back to why I am holding this debate: clearly, the most important professional in that regard is the careers adviser.

Young people are often misled—that is a tough word, but it is true—to believe that the only, or superior, way into a job is to take A-levels and go on to university. After the general election, I was the first MP to launch “100 apprenticeships in 100 days,” because I had a plan. It was terribly successful in Eastbourne and we have had more than 3,500 apprenticeships since, but more importantly, that galvanised the whole town around apprenticeships. Businesses large and small all got involved and the success rate has been tremendous.

I was at Dominic Hill accountancy only last week, a small company of 10 or 11 people that has three apprentices. One started four years ago and she now has the Association of Consulting Actuaries qualification. Another is two years into his Association of Chartered Certified Accountants qualification, and the brand-new one started on his ACA apprenticeship three weeks ago. When those individuals qualify as accountants—one already has—they will not be loaded with tuition fee debt. They all have jobs and I am pretty darn sure that, after they have qualified, they will stay at Dominic Hill because it is a good company, but, because their accountancy qualifications are portable, they can go anywhere. Therefore, the conversion rate is not 90% or 80%, but 100%.

I had a meeting the other day with the chief executive of AIG, the big insurance company, which is now providing apprenticeships in insurance broking and underwriting, but the vast majority of people still do not know that. The key individuals who would have that information and be able to feed that on to young people in schools and colleges are the careers advisers. Therefore, they are an absolute game changer.

I appreciate that the coalition Government have tried to address these problems, and that is laudable. The Education Act 2011 put schools under a statutory duty to provide independent careers guidance to pupils since its implementation in 2012. I also welcomed the announcement in last year’s autumn statement about the £20 million to be given to improve careers advice, and I applauded the Department for Education’s announcement in December that a careers and enterprise company is to be created to work with employers to inspire and educate pupils. That highlights the Government’s recognition that more needs to be done to improve careers guidance. We are heading in a positive direction.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. One school in Pendle that has really embraced providing impartial careers advice is Marsden Heights community college. It set up a job junction that opens on Monday and Thursday lunchtimes every week, and students employed in the dream team deliver careers advice, including discussions of the current apprenticeship vacancies in Pendle, with their fellow students. Will he congratulate schools such as Marsden Heights that have listened to what the Government have asked them to do and used their initiative to go much further in providing impartial careers advice to students?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I do applaud that; that is a really good example of partnership working locally and of a school being proactive. The colleges play a key role—I am the chair of the all-party group for further education, skills and lifelong learning—but schools are crucial. I work closely with schools in Eastbourne and Willingdon in my constituency, so I would be interested in getting some more detail from my hon. Friend to downstream that locally.

I still retain some concerns about the Government’s announcements. Will the Minister shed any further light on what the £20 million will be spent on specifically? What will the remit be for informing young people about the range of apprenticeships in the programme? Will the company work with the FE sector as well? I wait to hear from him on that.

I also note that the Secretary of State for Education took part in a session run by the Select Committee on Education that looked into the state of careers advice. We await the Committee’s report and I look forward to seeing that. More still needs to be done to highlight pathways into vocational or academic education and training.

[Neil Carmichael]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way for a third time. This time I want to talk about destinations from schools and colleges into workplaces and further and higher education. Does he agree that a better way of measuring the performance of schools is destinations, which would in turn stimulate more involvement in schools in promoting the right kinds of careers?

[Stephen Lloyd]

My hon. Friend has intervened frequently, but with very good points. I concur totally with him. I had a discussion with the head of Cavendish school a few months ago—he is a good guy at a really good school. He said, “Stephen, if I get my brightest youngsters really focused towards A-levels and university, I get a gold star from Ofsted,”—I am paraphrasing a wee bit—“but if I start pointing my brightest and youngest towards apprenticeships, I really don’t.” That is really important. He said, “But I do that anyway.” He is from the north, so he profoundly believes in apprenticeships even though he is in Eastbourne, but that was such an important point.

The Government have to find a way to ensure that the right outcomes for our young people are properly incentivised. Without that, we rely on individual heads and teachers to be brilliant and that is not good enough. I want our teachers to be brilliant, but I have been in business long enough to know that we need processes that underpin the teachers. Funnily enough, the next line of my speech is: how are schools to be incentivised to improve their careers advice provision? I look forward to hearing answers to that from both the Minister and the shadow Minister.

The Association of Colleges recently released a report titled “Careers Guidance: Guaranteed,” which uncovered some figures. They are not rocket science or surprising to the people here—otherwise, they would not be here—but 70% of young people turn to parents for careers advice and 57% turn to teachers. That is completely logical but mad, because, with the best will in the world, parents know only about their specific area unless they are careers professionals or they have a passionate interest in discovering about all of the extra 750 careers options that we seem to have today, compared with in my youth.

I have already explained about teachers. Great though they are, the challenge for teachers is that unless they have been trained, they will only know about their specific experience. We cannot change the fact that kids will go to their parents or teachers; it is logical. Whom do they trust most? They trust their parents. However, we need systematically and profoundly to improve the situation, and to pour focus and resource into improving the careers advice of teachers and improving the careers knowledge of parents, for example, through open days—I run apprenticeship initiatives constantly—so even parents know about the different careers. If we do not do that, in 10 years’ time we will be in exactly the same boat. We will be saying, “We are doing our best with careers advice. It’s not too bad, but—”. Thirty-five years ago, when I was starting out on my business career, the phrase could have been, “Careers advice is not too bad, but—”. Broadly speaking, that is still the case and it has to change. I look forward to the Minister and shadow Minister giving me an update on their proposals.

Recent research carried out by the Local Government Association shows that the drop-out rates cost the country over half a billion pounds. That does not surprise me at all. It will always happen a bit, but I am sure that a lot of that is related to poor advice.

I pay tribute to the National Union of Students, which has been very active and supportive on the issue. It is working closely with me on a separate apprenticeship initiative. It says that because the job market is so competitive these days, it is more important than ever for quality advice to be provided to 14 to 19-year-olds, as I am sure hon. Members would agree.

In my constituency, the unemployment claimant rate has dropped to 2.8%. A lot of the reason why is not just the national economy and the push we are doing locally, but the apprenticeship initiative that has been so successful in Eastbourne. The youth unemployment figure is now 325, which is almost 35% lower than at the height of the recession.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) talked about a school hub. I would like to share something we are doing in Eastbourne with the Chamber and the Minister, because it is another example of partnership and working together that is very successful. We have the Eastbourne jobs hub, which is slightly similar to my hon. Friend’s example, although not just from a school perspective. It has partners, including Sussex Downs college, Eastbourne borough council, the county council, the chamber of commerce—it is really important to get business right in the tent. We also have a dedicated manager, and I have match funding from each of the different groups, which means that even in a difficult economic climate, the funds can be provided to run it. There are also volunteers supporting the dedicated manager. I opened the hub myself about nine months ago. It is in the library, because having something like that in a central location is really important. It is all about careers advice, recruitment and helping to guide people into different job opportunities, and it is a really successful scheme.

For me, the key thing about schools, which is why I was interested in my hon. Friend’s intervention, is that that sort of scheme needs to be done much more in schools. It is a very good way of bringing businesses into the tent. A lot of companies, small and large, really enjoy going into schools, as long as there is a structure and they know what they are supposed to do. Equally, colleges can support schools on that, because my view is that young people need to start being informed about options around the age of 14, as they do in Germany. From a young age, kids begin to learn more about the different professions and different vocational and training opportunities that are available.

[David Simpson]

I want to mention a difficulty that is raised when we speak to industry in Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman has spoken about apprenticeships; what more can we do to incentivise, if that is the right word, young people to stay the course? If 10 or 15 young people start an apprenticeship in whatever career it may be, perhaps only four will finish it.

[Stephen Lloyd]

That is very important. To my mind, there are a number of things to consider. We must ensure that the Government of the day, locally, regionally or nationally, focus on that area and applaud success. Nothing is truer in life than that success follows success. I would like to see more and more young people who have been through the process, either as apprentices or at university, as ambassadors going into schools and working with local companies.

I was talking to a constituent the other day about long-term youth unemployment, the challenges of NEETs and so on. As a constituent of mine, he knows that is something I am very focused on—it is one of things that got me back into politics, as it happens. I told him that there is no point in me, a middle-aged, posh bloke in a suit, going in and talking about apprenticeships—it just doesn’t work! Although I profoundly believe what I say, and a lot of young people in Eastbourne know me, so they know I am absolutely passionate about the issue, they would listen so much more to a 19 or 20-year-old who had been through the process and was really fired up. People hear so much better those who look like them and sound like them. That is something I would like to see much more of.

Improved access to careers hubs, where colleges, schools, universities, Jobcentre Plus, and local authorities come together—many of us have such hubs in our constituencies—is a very good way of working and lifting morale and energy locally. I urge the Government to keep making progress on that, and I look forward to hearing the views of both Front Benchers.

However, as good and necessary as hubs are—I use them a lot, as do many of my colleagues—I am convinced that one good, trained careers officer who is passionate about what they do can change the world of career opportunities for young people more than anything. A careers officer who offers a real career path, and who is incentivised to find people jobs or good solid training, can change people’s lives. One day, if I am still an MP in x number of years—

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Days.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Who knows? I am an optimist. I am a Liberal. I would love to find that we hear more about careers officers who have transformed people’s lives. All of us here probably know one or two teachers who have done that, who have changed our lives in some way—I certainly do. I would love to be able to say in this Chamber, the House or at an awards presentation that people are talking about careers officers who have changed their lives, as they indeed can. A careers officer who has tremendous passion for their task and a comprehensive knowledge of the range of different opportunities can be a game-changer. It is our fault that that has not happened—we are the MPs; we are the Government—and it is about time we stepped up to the challenge. On that note, I look forward to hearing my colleagues’ contributions.

Apprenticeships

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) says that he has. I have not been able to because I am right up to my limit on my staff allowance, but I would very much like to. One challenge in representing an inner-London seat is the amount of casework that is involved, but I would love to take on an apprentice if we could all convince the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to provide us with more money to do so.

I have talked about what our record was and what this Government are doing, but what do we plan to do in the future? At the Labour party conference in 2014, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition outlined our ambitious six national goals for Britain in 2025, which included ensuring that as many school leavers go on to apprenticeships as go to university. That will require a dramatic increase in numbers. To achieve that, we will work in partnership with employers to ensure that apprenticeships are appropriate to their needs, which in turn will boost employer demand for them.

We will give employers, through sector and industry bodies, a greater role, ensuring that courses reflect their skills needs and that rigorous standards are set. The aim is for a skills system that is better aligned to the needs of employers and that delivers a pipeline of talented employees. We will also look to boost take-up by employers locally, which is best done by colleagues in local government working with their businesses locally and by those coming together to form combined authorities. We need to see more of such practice. Just look at the incredible progress that has been made by the Labour-run authority in Leeds under the leadership of Sir Keith Wakefield. The city’s new apprenticeship hub has doubled the number of apprentices in the city, especially among small and medium-sized businesses. Labour colleagues in Plymouth, Bury and Reading are actively engaging with local employers to boost apprenticeship opportunities, too, and we want to see lots more of that.

Alongside such practice, we would use the money that the Government already spend on procurement to require major suppliers on Government contracts to offer new apprenticeships. In that way, we can create thousands of new apprenticeship opportunities. That builds on the successful approach of the previous Labour Government. It is an approach that has been backed by the cross-party Business Innovation and Skills Committee, which has suggested that a minimum of one new apprenticeship place could be created for each £l million spent on public procurement. So a major project such as HS2 could, under Labour’s plans, lead to the creation of as many as 33,000 new apprenticeships.

As I said earlier, quality matters. Under Labour’s plans, all apprenticeships would last a minimum of two years and be level 3 qualifications to safeguard the trusted and historic apprenticeship brand, which has been tarnished in recent years. Those new rigorous standards would ensure that apprenticeships are, once again, a trusted gold standard and address the way they have been downgraded under this Government.

We were attacked for setting high standards by the Deputy Prime Minister in a frankly embarrassing and cack-handed response by him at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions last March. He lambasted us for apparently wanting to halve the numbers of apprenticeships by requiring that all apprenticeships be set at level 3 and last for at least two years. The truth is that we want to rename intermediate apprenticeships to protect the “apprenticeship” brand. Apprenticeships that do not currently meet the criteria will continue but under a different name.

The Deputy Prime Minister also got very excited about the use of the word “deadweight” in the independent report into apprenticeships that was produced for us. Chaired by the Institute of Education’s Professor Chris Husbands, the report recommended that we adopt those criteria. What the Deputy Prime Minister failed to notice when he got himself so excited about the use of the word “deadweight” is that the Business Secretary had published a report in 2012 with the title “Assessing the Deadweight Loss Associated with Public Investment in Further Education and Skills.” Clearly, the sooner the Business Secretary successfully carries out his coup of his party, the better.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a key reason for retaining level 1 as an entry for apprenticeships, is that apprenticeships offer an opportunity for lots of young people who do not have the education or the academic skills? If we do not let them in through a level 1, they will not have the opportunity to go up the apprenticeship ladder. That is a profoundly important point.

[Mr Umunna]

I am talking about not doing away with the qualifications of levels 1 and 2, but calling those levels something different and maintaining the badge of quality for apprenticeships by having them at level 3 and above. That will bring us in line with many other European countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. The limited time available means that I shall have to circumscribe what I was going to say. First of all, I appreciate that this is an Opposition day debate, so I appreciate that the Opposition will find things that they think we have done badly, and vice-versa. However, I want to rise above that, because the most positive aspect for me is that both sides recognise that apprenticeships have gone through—possibly started by the Opposition—a transformational process. I believe that the coalition has broadly carried that on successfully, so I am hopeful that whoever are in government after the general election will keep their feet flattened down on this whole apprenticeship agenda. It has been absolutely transformational for many hundreds of thousands of people across the nation.

I was the first MP after the general election to launch 100:100. It is not just that I was optimistic about defeating my coalition colleagues in Eastbourne, but that with a business background I had a clear understanding and appreciation that when good apprenticeships are put in place, they are both tremendously successful in securing employment for those who have been apprentices and beneficial to the companies involved. We achieved 181 rather than 100; since then, more than 3,500 apprenticeships have started in Eastbourne. It has helped to lift the confidence and mood of the constituency considerably. I am sure that it is also likely to be one reason why we have come through the recession so successfully.

I pay particular tribute to Sussex Downs college, whose apprenticeship unit has been outstanding. I have worked closely with the college right from the very beginning, and continue to do so. It is running at a conversion rate, for a number of different apprenticeship sectors, of 92%. I want that in Hansard, so I refer again to a 92% conversation rate of apprenticeships into jobs. Colleagues will know that very few Government employment schemes ever run at that rate of conversation. I congratulate Sussex Downs on its apprenticeship scheme.

Finally, on the status issue, I have been working closely with a number of different groups to try to set up something called “the Royal Association of Apprenticeships”. Depending on what happens after the general election, I hope to continue to make progress on that project. I am keen to work with leading Opposition figures as well, because the status aspect of apprenticeships is crucial, and if we could put together something like a royal association and make it work, it would enhance the status and gravitas of the whole concept of apprenticeships. I think this is necessary and will provide an important part of the jigsaw to improve apprenticeships generally for long into the future.

It has been a privilege to speak. Apprenticeships have been a game changer, and I look forward to that continuing for the next 20 years.

Deaf Students (Educational Achievement)

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

On that note, does the Minister agree that it is terribly important for deaf children that the local authority is flexible? My constituent has a young son who is within a few days of the switchover and being enrolled in a school for this September. He is profoundly deaf with cochlear implants. The local authority says that he must join that school, but I think it should be flexible. Does the Minister agree that local authorities must be flexible to ensure the best outcomes for deaf children?

[Mr Timpson]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that I do not know the details of that case and it would be wrong for me to comment on it, but the whole thrust of our reforms to the special educational needs system is to ensure that it focuses relentlessly on the individual needs of each child, and on the support that they and their family need, in order for the child to reach their academic potential. We must have high aspirations and remove any barriers that prevent them from reaching their goal, and I expect that to happen in every local authority, irrespective of where it is.

The Government have funded the production of an early support guide for parents of deaf children, and the I-Sign project to develop a family sign language programme is available from the National Deaf Children’s Society. That is particularly important in the first few years when children are learning to communicate, especially for 90% of deaf children who are born to hearing parents.

The most important service for all children and young people is high-quality teaching—the hon. Lady touched on that. We have set clear guidance in the new code of practice on the process for identifying and assessing children’s special educational needs, putting support in place, monitoring the progress made by each child, and securing further support where necessary. Narrowing the gap between deaf children and their peers is a key barometer for whether deaf children are getting access to high-quality teaching. Although we must endeavour to make further progress in that area, we should also recognise the enormous improvements that have been made.

More deaf children are leaving school with good GCSEs, and we want them to aspire to reach their full potential. In 2012-13—the latest year for which data are available—73.5% of deaf children achieved five or more A to C grades in GCSE, compared with 50% in 2008-09. For pupils without SEN, those figures were 89% and 80% respectively. Over that period, deaf pupils progressed at approximately twice the rate of their peers. The attainment gap has closed significantly, and that must be a testament to the hard work of pupils themselves, as well as to the work of sensory support services across the country. I hear what the hon. Lady says about recent figures from her constituency, and that is disappointing when so much progress has been made. However, I hope that with our reforms and the renewed appetite to ensure that health care, social care and education work more closely around a family, those improvements will come back on track.

Improvements in teaching practice and technological advances mean that deaf children are now far more likely to achieve their full potential than they were five years ago, and we want that progress to continue. We are working to improve the training of teachers and school leaders to help them identify where pupils with hearing loss face barriers to learning, and offer appropriate support. The hon. Lady rightly asked how we are seeking to do that. Through the national scholarship fund, teachers and support staff can apply for funding to undertake high-level qualifications to improve their knowledge and enhance their ability to support the teaching and learning of pupils with SEN and disabilities. Importantly, that fund can be used for qualifications relating to sensory impairment, and more than 1,300 staff have gained such qualifications since 2010.

In April 2014, the National College for Teaching and Leadership launched a new funding round with up to £1 million to support up to 50% of course fees for qualified teachers and SEN support staff, and 648 awards were offered from last September. We need to ensure we have provision to meet demand, and that is an area we need to continue to keep our attention on.

The hon. Lady asked a specific question about the issuing of hearing aids. She acknowledged and appreciates that that falls within the remit of another ministerial portfolio, but I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) addressed this issue in a previous debate and that Health Ministers are handling and monitoring the matter closely. I will of course re-emphasise the concerns the hon. Lady has expressed this evening to my colleagues in the Department of Health. Every intervention by health professionals should be based on clinical need and the legislation is clear that reasonable adjustments legislation applies to all young people.

On funding, it is for local authorities to decide which SEN services to provide for children and young people, including services for deaf children and how much to spend on them based on the duties we have placed on them in the new Children and Families Act 2014 and the accompanying code of practice. The services typically provided by local authorities, either directly or by commissioning others in the public or the private sector, include: services for visual, hearing and physical impairment; specific learning difficulties; speech, language and communication; profound and severe learning difficulties; and autism.

Councils are reporting that they are spending no less this year on their SEN services than they spent last year. Through their local funding formula, they also include a clear amount of funding intended to meet the needs of pupils with additional needs. The majority of children who are deaf and have a hearing impairment fall outside the category of educational health and care assessments. They will benefit from that funding through the delegated schools budgets, which have been protected. Special schools and other schools with special units often use their budgets to develop particular specialist services, including those for pupils with hearing impairment. Where necessary, schools receive extra top-up funding from the local authority for the additional support costs for pupils with the highest needs. We are committed to making sure that the requirements of children with special educational needs are met, and we have been clear to local authorities that they should prioritise vital front-line services to vulnerable children.

Nationally, more than £5 billion is being made available to councils for children and young people with special educational needs, disabilities and other high needs, as part of their dedicated schools grant. Allocations for the year beginning April 2015, notified to local authorities in December, indicated that more than £50 million more was being allocated to local authorities in the high needs element of their grant. The hon. Lady may wish to know that Devon’s dedicated school grant is increasing by more than £16 million next year and that the high needs element of its grant, which this year amounts to £59.6 million, is increasing by £0.2 million.

Just as important is how that money is spent—the way we measure improvement and outcomes for children and how we hold services to account for the quality of service they provide. Most deaf children attend mainstream schools, some of which have additional specialist units offering support on site. Assessments on how well schools perform will be made as part of Ofsted’s school inspection regime. The Ofsted inspection framework places a clear emphasis on meeting the needs of disabled pupils and pupils with SEN, and on considering the quality of teaching and the progress made by those pupils. Where a school has a specialist resource for deaf children, or for other forms of SEN, it is specifically covered by the inspection report.

One of the central tenets of the SEN reforms is to provide clear opportunities for families to influence and shape the development of local services, and to maintain legal rights to challenge individual decisions at the first-tier tribunal for SEN and disability. Last year, I asked Ofsted to carry out a study of local authorities’ planning in preparation for implementation of the special educational needs reforms, and to advise me on whether there was a need for an inspection framework to drive improvements. Ofsted’s findings and key recommendations were published in December. I have invited Ofsted formally to inspect local areas on their effectiveness in fulfilling their duties.

The hon. Lady talked about the key role of health in delivering support for deaf children. Ofsted will inspect along with the Care Quality Commission, and inspections will also involve a local authority officer. Inspections will form part of a wider accountability framework we are putting in place that has strong local accountability at its heart and which should provide assurance to families. Ofsted is now working up the details of the new arrangements, after which I hope to be in a position to provide further details.

With a significant number of children in England having been identified as having a hearing impairment and requiring extra support, it is imperative we ensure that they all benefit from the new SEN reforms. Not only do the SEN and disability reforms in the Children and Families Act provide legal protections, but they establish a better system for identifying needs and commissioning services across education, health and social care. The hon. Lady rightly spoke about the need to improve identification at the earliest opportunity so that the best support can be put in place to ensure that progress is made as soon as possible and that we do not delay ensuring that every child progresses, not just in their education but in the other development goals we know they are capable of.

The reforms should help ensure that services are responsive to local needs and that families do not feel they have to battle to find out what support is available or to access services. The evidence from the pathfinder areas and the early implementation of the reforms indicates that many parents are starting to see a different approach from the different agencies involved with them and their child. The new education and health and care plan will clearly set out in one place all the support across services that a child will receive, and crucially will focus on the outcomes, in education, work and other areas, that the child and their family want to achieve now and in the future.

This has been a thought-provoking debate, and I am sorry that we do not have more time to elucidate many of the important matters the hon. Lady has raised, but I again thank her for bringing this matter to the House and raising awareness of the importance of ensuring that all deaf children are given the best possible chance of succeeding, both educationally and more widely in their lives, as they move into adulthood. Our SEN reforms will help to deliver that well placed aspiration, and I look forward to continuing to work with her and the professionals who work day in, day out to provide the best possible support to help achieve the goals we have set, not just for ourselves, but more importantly for the children we are all there for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There is an enormous amount of investment in the North sea—about £13 billion last year, which was a big increase. One of my and my colleagues’ objectives, through the industrial strategy, is to ensure that as much of the supply chain as possible originates in the UK, and we are working with the industry on that. I frequently meet oil companies and fabricators to try to progress that.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I wholly support the Government’s move to increase the education leaving age to 18, but while the Department for Education budget is protected, the further education budget, which comes under the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and which will now be educating far more people up to 18 than schools, is not. This will put a huge strain on FE budgets. Will the responsible BIS Minister talk to the Secretary of State for Education to ask for assistance?

[Matthew Hancock]

I frequently talk to the Secretary of State for Education. The change to funding for 18 year olds was not one made lightly; dealing with the deficit requires difficult decisions. We published the impact assessment on the consequences, which show that disadvantaged students are not affected disproportionately. If we did not have a budget deficit of £100 billion, life would undoubtedly be easier.

Child Care

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

As ever my hon. Friend makes the point for a broader understanding of education, for play, for creativity and, above all, a high quality of provision. That is about making sure that we have high-quality childminders, those involved in nurturing, education and play for young people.

Sadly, what we have had from the Government is a sustained assault on early years provision. The coalition’s child care crunch means that since the last election the cost of nursery places has risen by 30%. There are 578 fewer Sure Start centres, with three being lost on average every week. The cost of a nursery place is now the highest in history, at more than £100 a week to cover part-time hours, and parents working part time on average wages would need to work from Monday to Thursday before they paid off their weekly childcare costs.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

The shadow Secretary of State makes some dire claims. How does he explain that in the past year more than 1 million families and children used children’s centres and that the numbers are higher than they have ever been?

Vocational Education

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing the debate. His involvement with and commitment to vocational education has been long and passionate, and I share that commitment.

Tomorrow is vocational qualification day. I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on further education, skills and lifelong learning. I therefore take this issue very seriously, and I have a profound commitment to it. There are many reasons why I passionately support vocational education, FE colleges and, indeed, the whole sector, but the most important is that the conversion rates from apprenticeships to jobs run at about 90%. At my local FE college, Sussex Downs, which is outstanding and has had a tremendous track record over the past few years under the leadership of its principal, Melanie Hunt, the apprenticeship conversion rate is an astonishing 92%.

A number of people who have left university with degrees and who are, sadly, still struggling to secure employment come to see me in my constituency, and I know that the same happens to other Members of Parliament. I sometimes have to resist the urge to say that if they had gone down the vocational route they would not have the student debt that so many people are, sadly, lumbered with nowadays and they would almost certainly be in employment.

On vocational education, the FE sector plays an absolutely pivotal role. There are several reasons for that. One is that the better FE and vocational colleges develop close relationships with local employers, local alternative training providers and the local DWP—the Jobcentre Plus. In Eastbourne, Sussex Downs college, where I will attend an apprenticeship event this evening before returning to Westminster tonight, is pursuing yet another initiative in a particular area of employment—in this case, retail. The college has spent a lot of time over the past year or two developing and deepening its relationships with different employer sectors and with Jobcentre Plus. A good FE sector wants to listen to employers; it talks to businesses and to the private and public sectors to try to understand their needs, so that it can train people in the vocational qualifications that fit the jobs—in other words, so that it can help people to be job ready.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has admirably championed apprenticeships since his election in 2010. I totally support—I have said this before, and I will say it again—his desire for a royal college for apprenticeships. That is a superb idea; it is exactly the kind of thing that would raise the status of apprenticeships. Perhaps we can discuss it afterwards to see how we can push it forward, because it would make a real difference.

On apprenticeship initiatives, I pay tribute to the Minister, the Government and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who is probably the most passionate advocate of FE and vocational education we have ever had as a Secretary of State. I spoke to him about the issue in the main Chamber only yesterday, and he reminded me—not that he needed to—of just how important he feels vocational education is in the FE sector. He also reminded me of how important it is that colleagues who feel strongly about this issue continue to lobby the Treasury, so that it does not remove too much money from the Department.

On apprenticeships in Eastbourne, I was one of the first MPs, along with the local FE sector, to work on the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days initiative. It was essential that I developed a close relationship with my local FE college, Sussex Downs. The work, which involved us and a number of other partners, was very successful, and we achieved 181 apprentices in 100 days. More importantly, it allowed me and the FE college to open a really strong dialogue with many local employers in the private and public sectors. The success of that has been astonishing. The latest figures from the Library show that Eastbourne has recruited more than 2,100 new apprentices since the general election—more than in the previous 10 years—which shows than when things are done properly the result is tremendous success.

I want to focus on something that came out of that: it brought home to me how deskilled schools have become about pushing apprenticeships. I work closely with local secondary school heads, and they were the first to admit that because for so long—particularly under the previous Government, but, to be fair, for at least 20 years—there was a drive almost to push people into degrees, teachers had become deskilled in talking about apprenticeships and did not know anything about them. The system in the Department for Education and the school sector provides no advantages in school league tables to push people towards becoming apprentices. There are, however, advantages to A-levels and sending students to university: doing so gets more money. If I were a proactive head who wanted to educate my students towards the tremendous range of apprenticeship opportunities—let us say that I quintupled the number of people becoming apprentices—I would not get a single extra penny from the Department for Education.

[Tristram Hunt]

How then does it help to bring careers guidance into schools, so that there is a producer interest telling young people, even with the rising participation age, that the best thing for them to do is stay on at school, rather than pursuing vocational and other options?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I note that the hon. Gentleman made a similar intervention earlier, and he has a strong point: I do not see how that can help. However, that is not to say that careers services should not be in schools; the question cannot be beyond the wit of man within the DFE, because I think the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills would be keen for the careers service to be extended into FE. I do not think the solution is to stop careers guidance going into schools. I think that it is to do with the regulations and expanding the remit of careers services and the roles or opportunities that they need to talk to students about. The hon. Gentleman made a fair point.

There is a difficulty, because the issue is not one for BIS. I have spoken frequently with the Secretary of State, and several times with my hon. Friend the Minister; and it is clear to me that BIS is, considering the austerity programme, investing more, has greater commitment and is determined to continue the extension and improvement of apprenticeships and investment in FE. I think that we have now come to the tipping point with the vocational sector and FE, and the relationship with the Labour party and the Association of Colleges; there is now a profound understanding that because of the circumstances this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move apprenticeships and vocational education up the scale, as in Germany. I am not sure that the opportunity will come again. I urge the Minister to do whatever it takes—working in partnership or working assertively with the DFE—to persuade the Secretary of State for Education to sit down with him and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and work on a productive, positive way forward, in which the DFE takes on board its crucial role in pushing vocational education and recognising and appreciating that there is an opportunity to transform its status, as in countries such as Germany.

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Gentleman makes a clear point about the difficulty that schools and colleges face because of confused and contradictory messages. He was right to praise the messages that BIS is giving out, including those from the Skills Minister. Those are often contradicted in some of what is measured in schools, and in schools’ lack of capacity to take forward the careers education, information, advice and guidance that has been mentioned.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I agree with the direction of travel of those remarks. I emphasise that the problem is an old one. It has been around for 25 to 30 years, so I understand that it cannot be laid solely at the door of the current Secretary of State for Education. It has a history. However, I believe we have reached the point where there is enough collegiate agreement between all the political parties and across the whole economic spectrum to transform vocational education. Some good steps have been taken. Now is the time for us to make the leap. I urge the Minister to continue firmly in the direction of travel that he and his colleagues have taken. For BIS and the Department for Education, it is time to work together productively for a transformation that would be universally popular.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing this hugely important debate, on today of all days—coronation day, when we pay tribute to our sovereign, Her Majesty the Queen. She worked in the family firm and learned her craft from a master monarch. She upskilled on the job, and now she is involved in her own training programme. Perhaps in future we may move vocational qualification day to coronation day, to give exactly the sort of royal imprimatur that the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) spoke so eloquently about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe was a long-serving principal of a sixth form college and is better placed than many of us to comment on the challenges that we face in creating an outstanding vocational education system. He set out the issues with authority and passion, and I pay tribute to his work at the Humber Skills Commission. Amazingly, he did all that while restricted by the anaconda of the omertà of the Whips Office, the perennial purdah that he suffers. Yet he still pursues his case with passion and authority. Furthermore, like me he represents an area that is on the front line of the Government’s austerity assault. One hopes that he has benefited from the recent changes in the climate change levy, but the truth is that for cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and places such as Scunthorpe, at the sharp end of the historic process of deindustrialisation, the profound brilliance of our local craftsmanship and artisanal skills has not insulated us from some challenging economic conditions. We can have brilliant craftsmanship while the situation for local skill levels is particularly challenging.

Now is not the time for a debate on the Government’s disastrous economic policies and the damage they have done to the demand side of the equation. We are gathered here today because we know that the supply side of the employment debate matters too: educational attainment and skills capacity are a vital component of rebalancing our economy to a more sustainable model. That much should be abundantly clear to all. Yet it should also be clear, as hon. Members of all parties have agreed, that we are nowhere near where we need to be on skills. Indeed, our weakness was illustrated in a recent global survey of over 1,300 chief executives by PricewaterhouseCoopers. That report revealed that UK business leaders are the most concerned in the whole of western Europe about the availability of key skills. Indeed, they rated it as the greatest threat to their businesses’ growth and three quarters of them said, rightly, that creating a highly skilled work force should be the highest priority for Government in the year ahead.

Sadly, however, there is still some complacency in Government, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) pointed out so brilliantly, is profoundly damaging to our international competitiveness, because we are, as the Government like to tell us, in a “global race”. How can we succeed in that race when we languish 21st out of all OECD countries in intermediate technical skills and while 31% of high-tech manufacturing firms have been forced to import labour from outside the UK because of a skills shortage? In this very Chamber, we recently had an excellent debate on engineering and the threat to parts of the national security supply chain because of the lack of UK-only trained engineers, particularly female engineers, as some hon. Members have suggested.

The Government, as the latest edition of The Economist eloquently puts it, are racing with their “shoelaces tied together”. That is why this debate is so important. It is absolutely clear to the Labour party that, if we are to build what we want to see—a one nation economy that can compete in a globalised economy while raising living standards right across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom—we simply must have the best skilled work force in the world. The cornerstone to delivering that must, now and in the future, be a relentless focus on driving up the standards of our vocational and technical education system.

I think it is fair to say that, as many hon. Members have noted, not least the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), successive Governments, including the last Labour Government, have not done enough to help the 50% of young people who do not want to pursue the academic route at 16 or 18. As he suggested, we are at a moment of agreement across the parties on the need to rebalance the debate, but I introduce a note of caution. We still want young working-class kids from Stoke-on-Trent, Scunthorpe, Eastbourne and Inverclyde to be able to go to university, and we should not be in the business of precluding those avenues. Although we can rebalance the debate, and although we all want to see growth in the respect given to vocational education and apprenticeships, we must not go down the avenue of suggesting that young working-class kids should not go to university.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but does he agree that what we are seeking is parity of both respect and esteem?

[Tristram Hunt]

I am delighted to agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right. What we are interested in is a cast-iron commitment to academic and vocational parity, because although our focus in government on raising school standards and academic rigour, and on expanding our outstanding, world-beating higher education sector, left the education system in far better shape than we inherited, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe said, we could have done more on vocational education. That is why the Labour party has placed vocational education not just at the heart of our education agenda but at the heart of our offer for the country in 2015, and it is why the leader of the Labour party made his call for focus on that forgotten 50% the heart of his recent party conference speech.

We disagree on the way the Government have pursued vocational education, however. Since they came to power, the Government have undermined careers guidance, which is a big issue for vocational routes. The recent report on that by the Select Committee on Education was absolutely damning. The Government have scrapped work experience and downgraded successful vocational qualifications such as the engineering diploma.

The Government have also made some bad mistakes on apprentices. When they came into power, they simply moved many of those on Train to Gain to apprenticeships. They were more interested in quantity than quality. We would like to think that there has been some rowing back on that recently, and we welcome the Richard review and all the hard work that the Minister is doing to try to enlighten the Secretary of State for Education on that, and we fully support him.

The Minister may now have persuaded his colleagues to hurry out their own version of a tech bacc, yet the difference between the Government’s technical baccalaureate and the Labour party’s original ur-version is that theirs is a performance measure whereas our ambition is for it to be a qualification that we want people to achieve. If some people are going to achieve it, other people are going to fail. If we want quality, it means some will succeed and some will not succeed. We want differentiation on the quality achieved.

As part of that, we need to raise the profile and status of vocational education to create a dual-track system that, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne suggested, genuinely gives no preference to either route. On vocational standards, that means having a clear line of sight both to work and to advanced, further or higher education, which means creating flexible and permeable pathways as a matter of importance. After all, young people are rightly wary of narrowing their options, and the whole ethos of a baccalaureate is to have a sense of broadness. Many see the option of gaining a degree or a gold-standard vocational qualification as part of their natural progression, irrespective of the route they choose at 18.

Furthermore, creating a genuine dual-track system also relies heavily on a deep-seated, collaborative ethos between institutions in delivering education and training. The countries that have enjoyed success in raising standards, such as Austria, Finland and Germany, all benefit from a system that has not only great career guidance but clearly defined roles for key stakeholders, with a great amount of time divested to building and maintaining institutional relationships.

If there is another criticism of the Government’s education policy, it is whether we are seeing the right degree of collaboration between atomistic, competitive schools, which are raising standards in certain situations but are not necessarily providing the kind of collaborative ethos that a local skills economy might need. That is some way from the institutional culture that the Government seem intent on inculcating with their slightly high-handed approach to the expertise of teachers and professionals, the lack of business involvement in delivering training and their focus on competition as the only measure of improving performance. If we want a proper industrial strategy, as the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills keeps urging, we need smarter local and regional collaboration.

Indeed, we only have to look at the shambolic execution of the Government’s careers guidance policy for a textbook display of encouraging perverse institutional incentives. In a tough funding climate, it will be a brave and outstanding school that advises its pupils not to stay on. In a recent conference in Westminster, we saw a very good example of that: a leading academy school that is part of a leading chain said that it had brought in outside careers guidance, exactly as it should be doing, but that it told the person coming in to give the careers guidance that they were not allowed to advise pupils to go to the college up the road. With in-house careers guidance, there is a producer interest in keeping kids along an easily understandable gold-path academic route, as it were, of GCSEs, A-level and university, rather than thinking far more creatively, which requires trained professionals with knowledge of local situations.

Perhaps the biggest problem we face in delivering a vocational education system for the future is the perverse and pervasive disconnect between the education system and local labour markets. All too often, skills policy is isolated from industrial and economic policy. That is why Labour’s technical baccalaureate would directly involve businesses in accrediting the quality of courses, and it is also why our tech bacc, unlike the Government’s tech bacc, would have a work experience requirement. Businesses have told our taskforce, the Husbands review, that that is absolutely crucial, which is why we would ensure that all vocational teachers spend time every year with local businesses and industry to keep their skills and experience fresh.

Those three measures would bring to education and training institutions a clear and realistic understanding of local labour markets. Closing the gap between employers and educators is vital if we are to develop a dual-track approach.

Of course, raising educational standards in vocational training does not mean that we weaken our focus on core subjects and on improving rigour. In vocational or academic routes, there should be no false division between theoretical knowledge in practical subjects. There is an interesting discussion to be had on where the journey begins for opening up pathways at 14 or 16. What have we learnt from the university technical colleges on the 14-to-19 parameter, rather than up to 16? Was the Wolf report 100% correct in saying that people should continue with the same totality of focus up to 16?

Fundamental to the Labour party’s education policy is a clear commitment to teaching English and maths to 18, irrespective of route, because although many further education teachers do an outstanding job, often in challenging circumstances—we have heard about the differences in funding and free school meals—we need to raise teaching standards in FE colleges in English and maths. Of the 40% of pupils who do not get a level 2 qualification at 16, only 20% go on to acquire one at 19 through the FE system. That needs to change if we want to upskill our country. The Minister should once again take his cue from Labour’s policy review, which is open and available to him, and from our one nation skills commission’s interim report, and commit to requiring all FE teachers to have at least a level 2 qualification in English or maths.

There are other problems with our system of vocational education, training and skills. We have acute skills shortages in crucial sectors such as engineering, too many young people who lack employment skills, low levels of employer involvement and a lack of good-quality advice for navigating the transition to work. Labour supports the proposals on traineeships that the Government are beginning to carve out. There is also a dearth of high-quality apprenticeships and a damaging divide between vocational and academic pathways.

However, I remain deeply optimistic about our ability to deliver on creating the skilled work force that we need. If we have problems with the manner of delivery, it is heartening that we have an element of cross-party consensus on the issue. We have a vast supply of dedicated, skilled, quality teachers who are willing to work with us to raise standards. If we get the system right, we can reverse the long tale of poor skills in this country and deliver a work force that can compete with the world.

We agree with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills that there is no future in a zero-sum game of depressed wages and longer hours. That is the Conservative future outlined in the terrible book “Britannia Unchained”—I do not know whether the hon. Members for Harlow or for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) contributed a chapter—which depicted a grisly neo-liberal world in which the British are too lazy and too slow. I do not know whether that includes paternity leave; the Minister might be able to enlighten us later.

The solution to our competitive challenge is not a low-skill, low-wage economy or a divided education system—the only race that will win is the race to the bottom. Rather, we must and can compete on our own terms, which means using our competitive advantage in innovation to build a one nation economy based on high-level skills and dynamic, technologically sophisticated companies. That is what young people want, it is what businesses want and it is what the Labour party is committed to delivering. It starts with a dual-track education system and our rigorous technical baccalaureate.

Apprenticeships

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I have really enjoyed the debate, which has been constructive on both sides of the House. The challenge with such debates is always the shortage of time and, like many other Members, I could talk about apprenticeships for a long time. I shall keep my speech brief, however.

For me, this subject is all about jobs. I was planning an apprenticeship initiative well before I was elected and I am pleased that I was elected as it meant that I could implement it. I was one of the first Members to do a 100 apprenticeship in 100 days campaign and in Eastbourne we achieved 181 apprenticeships, which was superb for the town. That momentum continued strongly and, according to the latest figures, since the general election Eastbourne has recruited more than 2,100 new apprentices, more than any other town across the whole of the south-east and more than the constituencies in Brighton. It works.

A lot of that success is down to the partnership working between local businesses, training organisations and Sussex Downs college and to the focus on making apprenticeships work. That goes back to the jobs agenda. In Eastbourne, we are running at a conversion rate of about 90%, which is stunning. That means that 90% of people involved are in full-time work after their apprenticeships.

Irrespective of the party political disagreements, I think that Members are, broadly speaking, united in recognising modern apprenticeships. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who, along with the Labour Government, began to promote apprenticeships. I hope he agrees that we have carried that work on.

Let me flag up three issues that I urge the Government to consider closely, as we have the Minister here. We have talked about schools and I am sure he knows that unless there is a clear rationale for schools to tick a box to show that they are doing something, they will not do it. I work very closely with the secondary schools in Eastbourne, which are very pro-apprenticeships, but they say, bluntly, “Stephen, there is not a lot of point in our selling apprenticeships because we don’t get any bonus for getting 100 apprenticeships.” I urge the Minister to discuss that with the Secretary of State for Education; let us do some creative thinking.

The second issue is quality, particularly when expansion is so rapid, and everybody recognises that we must keep an eye on that. I ask the Minister to keep focusing on quality. In seven or eight years, if we keep up our commitment to apprenticeships, they will have the same gravitas as apprenticeships in Germany. We should not forget, however, that some young people do not have the most academic education or background, and we do not want to set the lower rung for apprenticeships so high that they cannot get on to it. We must keep a close eye on that.

The subsidy for small and medium-sized enterprises is a strong idea, and within nine months of the general election I was urging it on the Business Secretary. I am delighted that after consideration, the Government moved down that road. I think it involves 40,000 SMEs a year. Despite the challenges in the economic envelope, I urge the Government to keep expanding the scheme over the next few years. Many SMEs have taken on apprentices—about 10%—and if more can do so it would be utterly transformational.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The hon. Lady is right: this is vital research. The crucial points, however, are that the research is taking place using stem cells from a range of sources, not just embryonic stem cells, and we are continuing to assess how much of the research and development that currently takes place in Britain would be affected by this judgment.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

10. What steps he is taking to encourage entrepreneurship.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

The Government are committed to making the United Kingdom the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business. Steps being taken include boosting tax relief, getting the banks to increase lending to small firms and scrapping regulations from this Department alone that would have cost small and medium-sized enterprises more than £315 million every year.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the Minister for his answer. It is clear that the Government are taking an active lead on growing and supporting our entrepreneurs. Will he therefore join me in supporting the Federation of Small Businesses in its fantastic real-life entrepreneur campaign, as that support will demonstrate yet again just how committed the coalition Government are to the entrepreneurial spirit in UK plc?

[Mr Prisk]

Absolutely. That is an excellent campaign by the FSB, and it shows why we are focused on matters that concern those real-life entrepreneurs: cutting their costs; tackling red tape; and of course improving access to finance. There is a lot more to do, but they know that we are on their side.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

As a question, that was close, but no cigar. However, just last week the hon. Gentleman was referring to my hon. Friend the Minister as his friend, and he will appreciate more than many the immense amount of work that he has put in to ensure that the arrangements are absolutely right. Let us remember that it was the hon. Gentleman’s former friend, the right hon. Alan Milburn, who panned the former Connexions service as being patchy and inefficient. We want to ensure that we do not make those sorts of mistakes and that we get it right for our many young people in future.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

2. What assessment he has made of the effects of the decision not to include religious education in the English baccalaureate.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We have had a large number of representations about the potential effect of the English baccalaureate on religious education in schools. We are carrying out our own work to assess the extent of the changes that schools are making from next year, and we shall continue to monitor the take-up of all subjects and the associated staffing implications. Religious education remains a vital subject that it is compulsory for all schools to teach through to the age of 16.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I have been lobbying the Government on this issue for some months now. The schools Minister has repeatedly asked for evidence to back up claims that excluding RE from the E-bac will have a negative impact on take-up and teaching provision. Last week, a report by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education, based on evidence from half of all state schools in England, showed that a quarter of schools are not providing statutory RE for 14 to 16-year-olds. Will the Minister address the issue, now that we have the proof?

[Mr Gibb]

The NATRE study cited by my hon. Friend suggests that around one in six schools anticipate a drop in religious studies entries at GCSE related to the E-bac, but it is not clear what overall effect that might have on take-up. Well over half of schools specifically indicated in that survey that there would not be a drop in GCSE entries in RS; indeed, a proportion said that there would be an increase in entries. That bears out the fact that the English baccalaureate does not prevent any school from offering RS GCSEs, and RE remains a statutory part of the curriculum.