Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I always support the Mayor of London, because he is one of the most brilliant Mayors of London this country has ever seen. He has frozen the Mayor’s precept and introduced Boris bikes. However, it took me an hour and 10 minutes to get to Westminster from Hammersmith on the tube, so perhaps today I am about 99% supportive of the Mayor rather than 100%.

I completely agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment that we must stamp on these copycat websites. I progressed the issue myself because of complaints from my constituents. That is why I am so pleased that we have made progress with strengthening search engine terms and conditions and started to move away from copycat websites having prominence and seen an increase in people using Government websites.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to increase the number of apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We have achieved our ambition of 2 million new apprenticeships since 2010. The apprenticeship grant for employers is helping smaller business to take on new apprentices. From April 2016, employers will not be required to pay employer national insurance contributions for apprentices under the age of 25.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating the nearly 800 people in my constituency who started an apprenticeship last year? However, it is not just about quantity; it is also about quality. What steps is he taking to raise quality as well as quantity?

[Nick Boles]

I am delighted to congratulate those who started apprenticeships in my hon. Friend’s constituency this year. There has been a 40% increase since 2009-10 in the number of people starting apprenticeships in his constituency. They are higher-quality apprenticeships than those that existed under the previous Government. They have to last at least 12 months, and they have to be a real job with a real employer. That is a key part of the economic plan that is improving conditions for young people in his constituency.

Improving School Leadership

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I am pleased to have secured this important debate on how we can improve leadership in our schools. The purpose of this debate is not to criticise any of the heads in my constituency, or anywhere else for that matter, but to explore how we can build and improve on what we already have.

Every single teacher at whatever level, from newly qualified teacher to senior, experienced head, needs our thanks, support and praise for all they do to educate our children and teach our country’s next generation of wealth creators. My remarks, therefore, are designed to be constructive rather than critical, and I hope they will be heard in the spirit of constructive joint working.

Education is a vocation, and I know of no teacher anywhere who entered the profession for any reason other than to impart knowledge and support and nurture our young people. Teachers, and I hope all those listening to this debate, recognise that education is the greatest gift we can give. We have all heard that before, and I know it sounds corny, but the problem is that it is true because, once the gift of education has been given, it cannot be taken away—it does not break and it will not fade.

Education is the foundation stone on which one’s future success is built. It is the base from which almost anything is possible and from which people can realise their full potential. All that is delivered by some truly dedicated and inspirational people who are found at every level of education in some truly excellent schools. Good education comes from good schools, which from my experience are led by good leaders.

In my constituency we are fortunate. We have some truly exceptional school leaders. Yes, it is true that education in Basildon and Thurrock has not always been as good as it could have been, but the leaders that we now have in place, and the support structures that surround them, will deliver, and are delivering, improving education for my constituents. There are too many good leaders to name them all, but I will pay tribute to a couple.

First, I highlight the extraordinary dedication of Dr Sophina Asong, head teacher of Gable Hall school in Corringham. The area is like many others in the country, but unlike many areas—where the average proportion of five A* to C grades, including maths and English, is just under 60%—Gable Hall was pleased this year to achieve 74% with five A* to C grades, including maths and English. I say “pleased” but the school was not satisfied; it knows it can do better, and Dr Asong and her incredible staff assure me that things will get better. I am sure we want to see such dedication and determination in all our schools.

Dr Asong—I hope she will not mind my saying this—is a force of nature that I would like to see bottled and delivered to all parts of our school system, but I also pay tribute to the new principal of Woodlands school in Basildon, Karen Kerridge. She took over the leadership at possibly the most difficult time that the school has ever faced. Less than a year after a disastrous Ofsted report, Karen has come in and worked tirelessly to turn the school around.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. It is important that we have outstanding leaders. Will he join me in congratulating Guy Shears, who turned around RSA academy Arrow Vale in Redditch? Could such outstanding head teachers be used as mentors for other head teachers?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and add my congratulations to Guy on all his work. Yes, head teachers with such skills should be used more widely in our education system so that we maximise the potential benefit to the wider teaching community. Karen Kerridge did that, too. She came in from another school to try to help Woodlands, and it is remarkable that in less than a year she has turned the school around so that, rather than being inadequate, it now only requires improvement. That may not sound fantastic, but it is one of the fastest turnarounds of a school, and I am confident that under her leadership it may not be long before we once again have a good school, which would be entirely down to the fortitude and dedication of Karen and all her staff.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has referred to getting good advice from other schools on improving performance. Is he aware that some schools have teaching school status? I draw his attention to Shenley Brook End school in my constituency, which has been a teaching school since 2012. The school’s leadership and training centre has helped guide and coach more than 2,000 teachers from 25 schools. Such centres are a good way of imparting leadership skills.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Teaching school status is an important part of improving the quality of teaching and the experience that teachers get before they go off into their own schools. That reform has been important, and it is an excellent innovation.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I agree with everything he has said so far, which is good. Able leaders, as he rightly says, are important—I congratulate those in my constituency—and they need the best possible teams. Does he agree that there is a strong case for the most challenged schools serving some of our most disadvantaged areas to be able to pay teachers more than schools in other areas so that they attract the best to do the toughest job?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is about the team. Successful schools tend to have a good head teacher with a good team around them, which is often down to the head teacher’s inspirational leadership. I agree that, where a school faces particular challenges, it is not a bad idea for it to be able to be flexible in the pay and conditions that it offers staff.

Speed is paramount, which is why the achievements at Woodlands school are so important. Students mostly get only one chance of an education, and for every day, week or month that they are not receiving a good education, we are doing them an incredible disservice, potentially damaging their future prospects and hampering their chances of reaching their full potential. We should celebrate the fact that Karen Kerridge has set the school back on the right path in less than a year, and we should thank her.

I would like to celebrate all the schools that are doing well in my constituency, but I am conscious of time and I want to hear what the Minister has to say. I am fortunate to have some great leaders who are helping to ensure that education in my constituency is improving, but unfortunately that is not the case everywhere. Unfortunately, there are too many schools that may not have the right leader with all the right skills and talents to deliver the kind of education that our children need, and often that is not the leader’s fault.

More than ever before, we have to deliver a world-class education, and we need able leaders to do that. It is a tough, difficult job that is not suitable for everyone. The job is different from any other in our education system. As the system is currently designed, however, if someone wants career progression, the obvious path is to head towards taking up a management role and, ultimately, their own headship.

But, as I said, being an inspirational, dynamic and consistent head teacher is like no other role in our education system. Head teachers have to manage complex and large budgets, perhaps a large staff body, premises and a range of other challenges. They are running medium-sized businesses, and they have to be able to deal with that fairly, consistently and in an orderly and professional manner, and many, many do. Despite all the training available and all the mentoring that can be given, we occasionally find that the wrong person has found themselves in an unsuitable job.

I suspect it is a bit like being an MP. Whatever a person imagines the job to be, it is not until they are actually in the hot seat that they fully understand everything it involves and know whether they are personally suited to it. However, an MP can step down at an election and pursue a different path without it being the end of their working life, but head teachers who feel they are in the wrong role have nowhere to go, which can cause problems both for them and for the school.

There are three options when that happens, none of which is a satisfactory solution. First, if the governors recognise that the wrong person is in the job they can initiate capability proceedings, which is a painful, devastating and destabilising experience for all involved, including the staff and students. It may force out of the profession an otherwise excellent teacher, which is a loss both for them and for the wider education system. Nobody gets to be a head teacher without being a good teacher and an asset to the system, and it would be a shame to lose all their talents simply because they lack some of the talents required to do a specific job.

Secondly, there is the “do nothing” option: the school coasts along, slowly declining, because the issue is put on the “too difficult to tackle” pile. Supporters of the school increasingly have to defend the declining performance and prop up the senior management team until finally a devastating Ofsted report is published that presents incontrovertible evidence that the school is not performing as it should. Suddenly, the head teacher is vilified and forced to leave the school and probably the profession, possibly to retire. Again, the damage done can be incalculable for the school, which may have failed students for years; for the head teacher, who has left a profession they probably love; and for the community they served, which feels let down.

Finally, there is the “hope and pray” approach: the governors hope the individual will move on or retire while they try to support those around the head until things get better. Unfortunately, that rarely happens, so one of the other options is usually adopted.

The problem with all those approaches is that even if the ultimate outcome is good, it can take years to deliver. However, there is no time to waste when delivering education. We need a system that supports great teachers, and encourages and nurtures fantastic leaders, but is fleet of foot enough to act rapidly if somebody finds themselves in a role they are not suited for and does not result in their having to leave the profession.

I turn to the role of the governors and the governing body. Having been a governor, I know how dedicated, selfless and hard-working they are. The role is becoming ever more demanding and requires a high degree of professionalism to be carried out well. Governors are the unsung heroes of our education system, and I want to thank them personally for what they do and apologise if they feel my earlier remarks were critical of them. The problem is that, as schools’ independence increases, the role of the governing body grows in importance, and it falls to the governors to hold the head and the school to account more than ever before.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making an important and excellent point about the impact of not taking action. I want to strengthen his point by saying that if governing bodies do not make that decision early, it becomes a much bigger problem for them, the school and the wider community.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent point. I was just coming to that issue. He is entirely right that speed is important, but that means that governors have to make some difficult decisions.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that schools serving the most disadvantaged communities often find it hard to get the governors they need for the accountability process? One of the best things businesses can do to help our education system is to encourage more members of staff to become governors in such schools.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. He admirably covered a point that I included in my speech. MPs have a role to play in that process. We should write to the larger organisations in our constituencies to remind them that they and the wider community benefit when they allow their staff to lead schools and play a part in the local community. That excellent point cannot be repeated too often.

For governors who lead schools that have greater independence, it is becoming harder to be all friends together. They may duck away from making tough or unpleasant decisions if they are too close to the senior management team and the head. I am not criticising governors, but I want to ensure they are equipped with the tools they need to play their important role of ensuring the leadership of our schools is the best it can be.

The Government have done much to improve our education system, for which I am grateful. I therefore hope the Minister considers my remarks to be a useful addition to the debate that will help us ensure our schools have the best possible leaders. People who find themselves in the wrong role should have constructive options open to them that do not result in their leaving the profession. We must equip our governors with the right tools to help that change happen. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Skills and Training Facilities

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely agree. That is an important point.

The target I set myself was to help 1,000 young people into apprenticeships in my first term in Parliament. I am delighted with the progress that has been made in Stevenage in the past four years. Six weeks ago in Prime Minister’s questions I asked whether the Prime Minister would

“join me in congratulating the educational institutions and businesses in my constituency that have increased…apprenticeship starts from just over 200 in 2010 to over 800 a year now”.—[Official Report, 14 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 747.]

That is a fantastic figure, and I am incredibly proud of it. The progress that has been made is amazing, and I congratulate the Minister for working to ensure that an apprenticeship means training for a real skill, with a real job and a real future at the end of it. I had the pleasure of meeting the Minister’s parliamentary apprentice last week. She is an enthusiastic young lady and committed to learning. I hope that he will tell us a little more about her experience when he responds to the debate.

There is much more to be done, however, nationally and locally. In my constituency we have smashed the 1,000 apprenticeship starts target for the present Parliament. I now want 1,000 apprenticeships to start this year alone—that would be 1,000 young people choosing skills and training for their future. What a statement of support that would be for young people in my constituency from employers and educational institutions that have skills and facilities.

Some hon. Members may have old-fashioned ideas about the quality of apprenticeships and the roles and careers that they offer. They may, at the mention of apprenticeships, think of a time-served traditional skill set such as plumbing, bricklaying or working as car mechanic—and what is wrong with that? Those are great jobs, offering a great future with skills that can be transferred all over the world. I promise hon. Members that there is more demand around the world for plumbers, brickies and mechanics than for Members of Parliament. They are far more likely to get a visa for the United States or Australia than we are. However, there are also a range of other apprenticeship opportunities in my constituency that will surprise some hon. Members. There are apprentice accountants, apprentice missile builders and apprentice rocket scientists.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend that the quality and range of the apprenticeships that are available is extraordinary. In my constituency an engineering company is expanding its apprenticeship programme to bridge the skills gap that has, unfortunately, grown up in the past 15 years. Does he agree that apprenticeships of that quality are a way of bridging the skills gap, and that they will help us to deliver our long-term economic plan?

[Stephen McPartland]

I agree completely. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. More than 10,000 scientists and engineers work in my constituency. The skills gap is a huge issue for companies in the area, which need people who can deliver such skills; they need investment in the future work force, so that they can continue to compete.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I am about to come to the fact that nationally, there is a lot of pressure on young people from parents and teachers to go to university. If that is right for the person and they want to pursue that option, that is their decision, but they should be given a choice. I have had some issues in my constituency with parents pushing their children towards university. Those 18-year-olds, who are old enough to fight for their country, are pushed into university because their parents feel that that is what is best for them, but it is often not best for them.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

When my hon. Friend comes across parents who are keen for their children to go to university rather than to take on an apprenticeship, will he use the example of Case New Holland in my constituency, which manufactures one in 10 of the world’s tractors? The current managing director started as an apprentice, building tractors on the shop floor, and now runs a £7 billion export company.

[Stephen McPartland]

My hon. Friend gives a classic example of the importance of apprentices to the local economy and local community. I would be delighted to meet that individual and to see some of his tractors in action, because—this may surprise hon. Members—we have a range of farms in Stevenage.

The Minister has done a huge amount of work on level 5 and 6 apprenticeships. A level 5 apprenticeship is equivalent to an old higher national diploma and a level 6 apprenticeship is equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. Some companies in my constituency already have level 5 apprenticeships and are working towards level 6 apprenticeships. Other companies provide their apprentices with day release and pay for them to go to university to secure a degree. Pursuing an apprenticeship is a huge opportunity in my constituency.

On the whole we are lucky, because we have created a culture locally whereby apprenticeships are highly sought after and the local community is engaged in helping our young people into work. During national apprenticeship week, I visited a local company in Stevenage, Solveway, at its training centre in Barnwell school to launch its IT apprenticeship programme. A local company has a training centre for apprentices in a secondary school in Stevenage—that is a fantastic example of the great partnership work we are promoting in Stevenage between the business, education and training communities.

Solveway is working in partnership with Barnwell school, which now has two IT apprentices and has already placed several other apprentices since the programme started in 2014. The aim is to provide an alternative career path for students who are interested in IT that should lead to permanent employment. Barnwell school’s head teacher, Tony Fitzpatrick, said:

“We have been very fortunate to be approached by Solveway to work in partnership with them. It makes perfect sense to have Solveway based at Barnwell School, there are many benefits for both parties and in particular for our students’ future career opportunities.”

Solveway director, Keith Swain, said:

“We have been overwhelmed by the support received from Barnwell School, local business and the community in support for this venture.”

That is a classic example of how people can come together in a local community and focus on giving young local people jobs and opportunities.

We spend a lot of time talking about what qualifications young people will get. I got my GCSEs, my A-levels, my first degree and then my master of science degree. I cannot remember what my GCSE results were. The point is that as we get each set of qualifications, the previous ones are no longer relevant, but if we had the opportunity to pursue apprenticeships, those skills would have been skill sets for life. It is important that people can go to university, but it is also important that they have the opportunity to pursue an apprenticeship if they want to.

The progress we have made is truly amazing, especially in such a short time and under such difficult economic circumstances. With our long-term economic plan working and unemployment continuing to fall in many of our constituencies, it is incredibly important that we push harder and faster to increase the number of apprenticeships and to improve skills and training facilities in our constituencies. Investing in our young people is investing in our future. I want to see more ventures like the one at Barnwell school, but the reality is that that requires a dynamic company working with receptive school leadership who want to see their pupils make progress. There is no reward mechanism for schools and companies that come together in this way, and the costs are taken on board. I would like the Minister to incentivise that type of initiative and to help more schools to help more of their pupils into work in more of our constituencies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

Yes, I do agree. That project is a key part of Gloucestershire’s economic plan, and it can provide the skills that we will need for the next generation of nuclear power stations at Hinkley and Oldbury. We are currently considering Gloucestershire’s request for local growth funding to support the project. I hope to announce the allocation for Gloucestershire as part of the growth deal before the summer recess.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

16. What recent support his Department has provided to small businesses.

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill builds on a record of 42,000 businesses helped to export by UK Trade & Investment over the past year and 15,000 small businesses supported by the growth accelerator scheme. As the Secretary of State said earlier, the number of start-up loans approved has reached 18,000.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, large businesses still owe small businesses over £30 billion in overdue invoices. Only yesterday, a company in Basildon contacted me to say that one of Essex county council’s main contractors owes it well over £100,000 past the due date. Will he expand on how we will use the small business Bill to resolve this issue and pump billions back into the economy?

[Matthew Hancock]

The Bill contains two elements on prompt payment, the first of which is to increase the amount that Government pay quickly. BIS pays almost all its invoices within 30 days and the vast majority within five days. We will also bring transparency so that when small businesses enter into contracts with large businesses they know their payment performance and can negotiate on that as part of the contract.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to encourage more people to become engineers.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to encourage more people to become engineers.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Government are working with employers, professional bodies and higher and further education institutions to implement the Perkins review of engineering skills and boost careers in engineering, particularly for women. In September we announced a £400 million boost for STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—teaching in universities.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

In a recent Science and Technology Committee report “Educating tomorrow’s engineers”, we recommended that

“learned societies, professional engineering institutions and trade bodies put an obligation on their members to systematically engage in promoting engineering and technology as a career through a structured programme of educational engagement.”

What progress, if any, has been made in making that come to fruition?

[Vince Cable]

There is a recognition of the seriousness of the shortage of engineers, and we are trying to address that in a variety of ways. On the particular programmes that my hon. Friend has described, we are working with the professional associations on work experience for students and industrial placements for teachers, because we have to change the perceptions of young people in schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

We have debated this issue in the House before—I think the hon. Gentleman spoke on it, and I responded—and we take it very seriously. I have had conversations with the Information Commissioner to ensure that the injustices of the past are properly dealt with, and as I have said to the hon. Gentleman and the Opposition spokesman, if Members have more concrete evidence that has not been properly investigated, they should bring it directly to me.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T3. Suppliers to top-tier Government contractors still complain that payments made under the prompt payment code are not forthcoming. What more can the Government do to improve the situation and release billions of pounds back into the economy to support our long-term economic plan?

[Matthew Hancock]

The problems of people failing either to make prompt payments or to honour payment terms—two related, but slightly different points—need to be addressed. They are largely problems that negatively affect small companies, and we are currently consulting on how radical we need to be to get the balance right and address them.

PISA Results

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is a teacher himself, so he knows how important it is to make sure that learning is targeted at children in an appropriate way to recognise the different abilities that different children have at different stages in their lives. Through the pupil premium, we are making sure that more money is spent at every stage of a child’s life if they come from a poorer background. We are also changing the way in which league tables operate so that more schools have to pay more attention to children from underprivileged backgrounds to ensure that we get the most out of them.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

An outstanding school is invariably led by an outstanding head teacher. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that every school has an outstanding head teacher? Will he consider introducing a system that allows excellent teachers who have been promoted to head teacher to move back down if they do not have the necessary skills to be an excellent head?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is not necessary to be an outstanding head teacher to be an outstanding contributor to excellence in one or in many schools. It is important that we recognise the different ways in which teachers can be celebrated. Our system of performance-related pay will ensure that people who are outstanding and want to lead and to exemplify great teaching will be rewarded appropriately. I therefore hope that Labour Members will support it.

Qualified Teachers

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. It is hard to overestimate the importance of education to the individual and to society. I am therefore grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education for the changes that he has made to our system. The education revolution that he has driven forward is truly astounding. He should be very proud of his achievements.

Students get one chance at education and every day counts. It is up to us to ensure that every one of those days is fruitful and productive. To do that, we need to provide an engaging and inspirational learning experience. For that, we need the best and the brightest to see teaching as the career of choice. Teachers need to be dedicated, motivated and appropriately qualified. For the vast majority, that will include achieving qualified teacher status. However, as part of delivering an all-round inspirational education we should not exclude those who do not have qualified teacher status.

The purpose of education is to impart knowledge; to allow students to access the next level of learning; to give individuals the opportunity to find their place in the world; and, I hope, to inspire people to have a lifelong thirst for learning and knowledge.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman says that the purpose of education is to impart knowledge. Does he not think that the training that teachers get through QTS in how to impart knowledge, the psychology behind learning and behaviour management is important in delivering that? Does he not think that it matters that every teacher can control a class and help children to learn? That is what we are talking about today.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Yes, those are important skills, but they are not the only skills that one needs to be able to impart knowledge.

We all have examples of inspirational teachers who have made a difference to our lives. Mine is my fourth-year junior school teacher, Mrs Chapman, at Staples Road county primary. She was an inspiration and I am still in touch with her. However, there are other inspirational people who have shaped our lives, given us an alternative perspective, encouraged us to aim higher or showed us a world that we never knew existed. Those people have something to offer to our education system.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

How would the hon. Gentleman feel if he turned up at the airport and was told that they did not have a qualified pilot, but they had somebody who was passionate about flying and was really quite good at it?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Many of the teachers who do not have qualified teacher status are the most outstanding teachers around. It is for schools, head teachers and Ofsted—those who are in the know—to assess the individuals about whom we are talking. They should not be disqualified just because they do not have the relevant piece of paper. We exclude those people at our peril.

Do not get me wrong: QTS is an important and valuable qualification that most teachers should have achieved or be striving for. We are trying to free schools from the burden of bureaucracy. As I said, the best person to assess who is the right person to be teaching in their school and delivering an education that best meets the local needs is the head teacher. We need to move away from command and control from the centre. That should include the opportunity of involving excellent teachers who do not have QTS.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), the former Labour Secretary of State for Education and Skills, said recently:

“If you find someone who is a great musician but they can’t spend three years getting the proper teaching qualifications, I think you should use them.”

Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I agree 100%. We need to be open and transparent about who has what qualifications and we must ensure that there is a rigorous and robust inspection regime, but the motion would exclude Stephen Hawking from even offering to teach a class. He would not be allowed to teach a—[Interruption.] He would not be allowed to teach because he would not have—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are going to have a bit of command and control here. The command from me is that Members are to stop shouting across the Chamber when somebody is speaking. If they want to intervene, they should do so. The control is that if they persist in shouting, they will not be called in this debate.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I apologise for responding, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The motion would prevent Stephen Hawking from offering himself as a teacher, unless he got QTS or said that he was studying for it. It would prevent Jessica Ennis from teaching PE, Damien Hirst from teaching art and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) from teaching history. We should consider all the people who might have something to offer our students, but who would be excluded unless they put themselves forward for QTS. I accept that experience and achievement in themselves do not make for a good teacher and that we must never compromise standards, but equally, experience and achievement do not make somebody a bad teacher.

We need excellent, well-qualified, dedicated, respected and inspirational teachers, but let us not exclude all those who are exactly that just because they have not acquired QTS. If we do, we will fail not only ourselves, but the very people on whom we should be focused: the students.

Educating Engineers

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Walker, and to speak in this important and timely debate.

Why is a debate on educating tomorrow’s engineers important, and worthy of a report by the Select Committee on Science and Technology? There is no doubt that the country faces huge challenges. None is greater than the economic challenge; and our future is by no means certain, so we need to carve out a new future for our nation—one that is not based just on financial and other service-based industries, which perhaps we have come to rely on too much. They are valuable industries, but we need to rebalance our economy.

We need also to recognise that we will not return to the heavy metal-bashing industries of the past and that we need to play to our strengths; perhaps we had forgotten what they were. For too long, we abandoned—or at the very least undervalued—our skilled industrial and engineering heritage, in favour of other sectors. The time has come for that to change, and I hope that the report will instigate and support that change.

What lies behind the Government’s reforms in education must be widely and generally welcomed. There is a deep-seated belief that we need to give young people the best possible opportunities and skills to enable them to get access to the jobs that will exist in future. Some of the reforms that we considered will achieve that. We may collectively have underestimated the value of engineering, but let us not undersell ourselves.

As the Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), said, engineering and manufacturing are still hugely important to the country. They are also important to me personally in my constituency. The UK is home to more than 500,000 engineering companies, employing, as we heard, 5.4 million people, of whom 2.3 million would consider themselves to be skilled engineers. That accounts for 8% of the work force. As we heard, it accounts for one fifth of GDP and half of all our exports, and turns over £1.15 trillion. We should not underestimate the importance of the sector, but we sometimes do, and we therefore seem to have created an ever-widening skills gap, which has consequences for the economy and for the rebalancing of our national wealth.

[Stephen Mosley]

I am the co-chairman of the parliamentary ICT forum, and one of the things that companies always tell us is that the No. 1 thing they look for when considering investing in any country is not tax or any such factor but whether the skills that they need are available where they are thinking of locating a factory or development lab. The report ties into that.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend is right. Skills are a major factor when people are deciding where to invest. Something that I found surprising, or perhaps even shocking, was that when the CBI conducted a survey of companies, it found that 42%, across all sectors, reported a skills gap when recruiting. That skills gap is as true in my local context as it is nationally.

South Basildon and East Thurrock has a long and rich industrial heritage, and I shall, if I may, blow my constituency’s trumpet for a moment. For example, one in 10 of the world’s large tractors are built in Basildon, at Case New Holland, generating £7 billion of exports. The personal IED-blockers that our servicemen wear in Afghanistan are built, designed and programmed in Basildon by Selex. Gardner Aerospace is a medium-sized engineering firm, employing more than 200 staff in my constituency. It is a tier 1 supplier to Airbus—there is not an Airbus A380 that flies without a part made in Basildon—and it competes with firms in cheaper-cost-base countries such as India and China, and why is it able to compete? Because of its quality and because it delivers on time.

[Tristram Hunt]

Given the excellence of the Airbus-producing manufacturer in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, has that impacted at all on his ideas about the virtue or otherwise of the European single market?

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[Stephen Metcalfe]

That is probably a debate for another day. There is no doubt, when we export 50% of our goods to Europe, that it is an important customer of ours, and I would not want to do anything to undermine that, but what does undermine that company’s ability to prosper and grow is the lack of skilled engineers in the wider work force. When I recently visited the company, I was told that although it is managing to recruit apprentices to train up to support its current work base, if it were to be offered a new large contract, it could not go out into the economy and recruit enough engineers to expand, even though we can compete with low-cost-base countries. That demonstrates why it is so important that we bridge that skills gap.

While I am blowing my own constituency’s trumpet, let me say that it is also home to Ford’s research and development facility at Dunton. The facility employs some 4,000 designers, engineers and technicians. For these companies to prosper, we need to bridge that skills gap, so what can be done?

First, we need to change our attitudes towards engineering as a career. We all need to work harder at promoting engineering as the rewarding, well-compensated profession that it is. It is a profession that shapes the world that we live in, and too many people do not understand that. Certainly, too many young people do not understand it. They are not aware of the role of engineering—how it shapes the world that they touch and experience every day. Even when they understand that and have a positive attitude towards it, that does not necessarily translate into wider participation, so we must have a change. We must find a way to engage with young people and show them that they have a role to play in engineering. That starts in schools, but there are concerns, as we have heard, that some of the changes that have been made to our education system will not necessarily support that.

There are concerns that the curriculum changes will do little to inspire people to take up STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and maths. There is concern that with design and technology no longer being compulsory, people will not be able to take their enthusiasm for that subject further. I look forward to being corrected if that is not the case. One of the issues that I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to address particularly is whether the EBacc is likely to encourage schools to concentrate on the five core subjects, rather than offering a broader education that might include exposure to engineering. Concern is also expressed that the new TechBacc does not receive the same recognition as the EBacc. Again, if that could be addressed, I would be most grateful.

There are concerns, as we heard from the Chairman of the Select Committee, that the changes to and perceived downgrading of the engineering diploma could send the wrong message. I am sure that that is not the Government’s aim. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I believe that the Government’s changes to education are designed to give people all the skills that they need to make the most of the potential that they have.

There are plenty of positives, and I will try to touch on them, although I do not want to detain hon. Members too long. One of the things that I welcome most is the university technical colleges—I would certainly welcome one in my constituency. They are a fantastic way of giving young people skills and inspiring them into potentially interesting and well-rewarded careers. My only concern about the university technical college programme is that not enough people will have access to it. I think that they are fantastic and would support them wholeheartedly. I would love to see an engineering and logistics university technical college in Basildon.

I am very pleased that, through an initiative funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Government are creating a network of more than 25,000 STEM professionals and academics who can go into schools to support STEM education and promote STEM careers. I understand that the Government are also part-funding STEM clubs. The hope is that 80% of secondary schools will have one of those clubs by 2015. I have seen how some of the clubs work in my own constituency when they are supported by industry as well. They are fantastic; they really do get people excited.

Both the private sector and the voluntary sector have a role to play, as I have seen locally. The power generation company npower runs programmes that involve people going out into schools and showing young people the practical application of engineering. Network Rail produces support material. JCB, as we have heard, sponsors a UTC. Businesses such as Ford and Selex in my constituency support the engineering and STEM clubs. There are initiatives such as “We Made It!” and Primary Engineer, which is fantastic, because we cannot start encouraging people to be interested in engineering young enough. Primary Engineer is a project that works with key stage 1 and key stage 2 pupils, getting them to design vehicles that they can then test in a competition. It allows them to look at the engineering solution to certain problems. It is fantastic to see in practice.

[Andrew Miller]

I add to the hon. Gentleman’s list the Rolls-Royce awards. This year’s winner is a primary school from Belfast. It is an inspiring project that the youngsters and teachers have been engaged in, but the key there was the partnership between the company and the school to bring the technical expertise that was outside the school into the classroom.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Absolutely, and that leads me to my next point beautifully. All those things are brilliant, and to see them in action is fantastic. My concern is that what is happening is not systematic enough. We are not getting it into every school, and not every pupil or student has access to it. One of the recommendations in the Select Committee report—I was delighted that the Government accepted it without amendment—was that all the learned societies, professional engineering institutions and trade bodies should oblige their members to go into schools, in a systematic way, to promote engineering and technology. Even if it was just for one day a year, if each of those engineers could go into schools across the whole school body, it could have a significant impact.

As a result of some of the initiatives, we are beginning to see an improvement in the uptake of engineering and particularly in the number of engineering apprentices and apprenticeships in our economy. Today, just before I came here, I had some very good news. DP World, which is constructing the London Gateway container port down at Shell Haven in my constituency, will on Monday announce the creation of six new engineering apprenticeships to support the engineering activity that takes place on that site. To see £1.5 billion invested in south Essex is great, but the engineering feat—the reclamation of the land and then the handling of millions of containers—is a fantastic sight and something that will, we hope, excite those six potential engineers.

In conclusion, there are some fantastic organisations and companies throughout our country doing some great things to inspire the next generation of engineers, but we must do more. We face a lack of skills and a shortage of aspiration to give people those skills, but those problems are not insurmountable. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that

“engineers are the real revolutionaries, the ones who take society forward, who create the technologies and the structures which carry us into new worlds.”

Although progress is being made and the general thrust of what the Government are trying to achieve is welcome, we must do all that we can to ensure that engineers can continue to take our society forward and continue to forge a future that will meet our increasingly complex needs. I hope that the Government will revisit our report, take it in the spirit in which it is meant and use it to achieve our shared and combined goal of creating a broader uptake of engineering across our whole society.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Depending on the length of the next speech, we will start the winding-up speeches at 4 pm ideally. If the Front Benchers could leave two minutes for the Committee Chair at the end—we are due to finish at 4.30 pm—that would be well received by all, I am sure.

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am most grateful, Mr Walker; I shall try not to take up all that time, generous though the allocation is. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), the Chair of the Committee, on the excellent way he introduced his report and on his earlier speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) on what he said. I agree with everything they have said, which makes this a consensual, but none the less important debate.

I am most grateful to the Chair of the Committee for what he said about my speech last week in the Queen’s Speech debate. I echo what he said about the welcome response from the Leader of the Opposition, declaring cross-party support for efforts to encourage the status of engineering in our society and, in particular, women’s role in engineering. My speech last week had one great problem; it was overshadowed by the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. I have bad news for the Chair of the Committee today; this debate will also not get the attention it deserves, because it is being overshadowed by the announcement today of David Beckham’s retirement from football. My serious point is, would it not be great if the retirement of a major engineering figure attracted even a fraction of the attention that the retirement of a major footballer does? As my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock said, it is engineers who change the world. Footballers entertain us marvellously and they are great people—probably overpaid, but great none the less—but engineers make the world a better place to live in. Their role is important to society. I have just come back from Jordan, where I talked to Jordanian parliamentarians about democracy. Most of the Jordanian Members of Parliament I met, rejoiced in the title “engineer” before their name. If only we could honour engineering as they do in other societies around the world, it would be better for all of us.

I declare a non-interest, in that the excellent Georgie Luff—who gave evidence to the Committee, is reported in the minutes of the Committee and referred to in the report itself—is, as far as I know, no relation. I wish she were. She is an outstanding young lady and clearly did a great service to women and engineering in her evidence to the Committee. I am a non-executive director of a small advanced manufacturing business, where I am seeing for myself firsthand the very real problems facing engineering companies. Skills shortages in engineering are real and present.

During my chairmanship of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills in the previous Parliament, many of the reports we produced referred to the skills shortage. I became more and more concerned about it, and the inadequate careers advice in schools. As a Defence Minister, I saw for myself just how pressing the shortage was. I went to TRaC Global, a test and evaluation company, and opened its Dorset facility. I was told, “Minister, we’ve given up looking for engineers from British universities. It is not worth our while, because they aren’t there. We’re recruiting from Spain and Portugal.” That was my moment of revelation. It is all right for a major British engineering company in the civil sector to recruit overseas—it is a massive wasted opportunity for British young people that they are not being employed to work in those engineering companies and the jobs are going to foreigners instead—but we cannot do that in the defence sector, because we need UK eyes only on high security matters. As I said in my speech last week, when I proposed the Loyal Address, the shortage of engineering skills in this country

“is one of the greatest avoidable threats to…prosperity and security.”—[Official Report, 8 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 7.]

I stand by those words.

Locally, the success of engineering companies can be a problem for Members of Parliament. In my part of the world, Jaguar Land Rover is flourishing—sucking up all the design engineers it can find, not only in the west midlands, but further afield. The result is that many engineering companies in my constituency find it more and more difficult to recruit engineers due to the desperate shortage of engineering skills. The shortage is made infinitely worse by the demographic of the engineering profession. Many people will retire in the next 10 years, so we will have to recruit a phenomenal number just to keep pace and fill the gaps.

I gave the Chair of the Committee eight out of 10 for the report. That was a bit churlish of me, so I apologise. It was mainly because he did not draw its scope quite wide enough. It was focused, quite reasonably, on the 14 to 19 age range. He helpfully said in response to my intervention that key stage 2 and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock said, key stage 1 matter hugely as well, and I agree. If we are talking about inspiring the next generation of engineers, as the report does in chapter 4, starting young is important.

Although the report says all the right things about women in engineering, it does not identify specific steps that could be implemented to enhance their participation rate. In France, the engineering participation rate for women is about 21% or 22%; here, the estimates differ, but 10% to 12% is a good guess—half the French rate. The French are worried that their rate is too low, and yet we have the lowest rate in the European Union. We are 27th out of 27 and will be 28th out of 28 when Croatia joins. It is a scandal in its own terms, but it is also a missed opportunity for engineering. Modern engineering and its problem-solving nature lends itself more and more to the skills sets that females bring to the profession. We desperately need women to be engaged in engineering, and it is a great shame that we have not yet succeeded in boosting their numbers.

Another important thing that the Committee’s report refers to—although perhaps not quite enough—is how to engage business in schools. There is a lot about taking teachers out and helping them to understand business, but how do we help businesses to engage more in schools? What upsets me so much is we are living in a society with a real, acute youth unemployment problem—not only in this country, but around the world—and employers are crying out for skill sets that are not available in the labour force. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to marry up those problems; if we produce more engineers, we address the problem of youth unemployment, at least in part, and solve the problems facing our economy and security.

Things are happening, which the Government’s response to the Committee’s excellent report mentions. Paragraph 5 gives statistics that are encouraging in many senses:

“A-level physics entries have risen from 25,620 in 2009 to 30,750 in 2012.”

That is a welcome, good increase—constructive and positive—but it is nowhere near enough. A problem in the debate is that education gets boring so quickly. It becomes ridden with cliché and jargon, complex constructs and complex bureaucracies, but there is one thing at the bottom of it: we must inspire more young people, particularly girls, to want to be engineers—that is the essence of it. The Government understand that, as does the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who responded to the previous debate. The skills shortage is a matter of the utmost urgency.

I do not think “complacency” can be used to describe the Government’s response; I caution against that. The issue is pressing and urgent and must fundamentally be addressed. The Government are right to say that the figures are improving, but the figures are not better enough and they are not improving fast enough. They are not as high as they were in the 1980s, for heaven’s sake! The scandal of girls’ participation is a real problem. The Institute of Physics produced a marvellous report, “It’s Different for Girls”, on participation rates for women in engineering, and physics in particular. One statistic in the report horrifies me more than any other: 49% of maintained co-educational schools sent no girls on to take A-level physics in 2011. In half of all maintained co-educational schools, no girls do A-level physics as a result of their education up to A-level. We simply must change that. Physics is, I think, the fourth most popular choice for boys, but the 14th for girls. The figures are well down and there is no reason for that whatsoever.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one way to change that shocking statistic would be for those women who had studied physics—STEM subjects —to come into schools to inspire other women to think about taking such subjects further than GCSE and to provide positive role models?

[Peter Luff]

Many young women are doing that most magnificently. ScienceGrrl is a marvellous organisation—I cannot believe how many R’s there are in girl now. They are a fantastic bunch of young women trying to inspire the next generation of female engineers and scientists. I use the word “engineer”, but I am not sure what it means; I think it is really applied science.

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, and to follow the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who has produced another compelling and interesting speech. I begin to think that he is a renaissance man, given his involvement also in the upcoming commemorations of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015.

The Opposition welcome the Science and Technology Committee’s report. It is an important intervention on a question vital to rebalancing our economy and improving our competitiveness and, as we have just heard, for reasons of national security. “How do we educate tomorrow’s engineers?” is our collective exam question. The Opposition also welcome the Government’s response to the report, now that it has finally arrived.

I follow the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), serving as a constituency Member of Parliament, in thinking of the excellent traditions of engineering that we have in Stoke-on-Trent. I am thinking particularly of Goodwin International, a company now in its 10th generation of family ownership, which produces precision steel engineering for nuclear power stations in China, as well as for bridges around the world. Olympus Engineering is another fine business in my constituency.

As the report and many colleagues have noted, the UK engineering sector comprises more than 500,000 companies, employing 5.4 million people and generating one fifth of our GDP and half our exports. In 2010, it generated a £1.15 trillion turnover. By any measure, that is a profound contribution to our economic well-being. We all want to move wealth across the country away from London and the south-east to ensure greater equity in our constituencies. The sector is a profound part of our economy.

Although I would be happy, indeed delighted, to wax lyrical about the wonders of Richard Arkwright, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thomas Telford and Stoke-on-Trent’s own Reginald Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire, at the moment we should think of the future and the modern global race for competitiveness. We are not where we need to be on skills, as the recent global survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers outlined. That survey of more than 1,300 chief executive officers revealed that UK business leaders are more concerned about the availability of key skills than any of their western European counterparts, rating the issue as the greatest threat to their businesses’ growth. We have heard evidence of that in the debate. Three out of four chief executives said that creating and encouraging a skilled work force should be the Government’s highest priority for business in the year ahead.

Nowhere is the struggle for skills more obvious than in engineering. As the Committee report outlines, by 2020, we will need 820,000 science, engineering and technology professionals, 80% of whom will be required in engineering. One need only look at the Indian institutes of technology or what is going on in China to realise that the rest of the world is not going to wait around for us to catch up.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point, with which I am sure we all agree. Does he therefore fully accept that we are competing on a global stage and that we are in a global race? We owe it to our young people to give them all the skills that they need to compete in that global race.

[Tristram Hunt]

I absolutely agree. The challenge is how to do so, and politics is the issue. We must push ourselves up the quality supply chain if we are to earn our money in the world. It is therefore depressing to read in the report that 31% of high-tech manufacturing firms had recruited people from outside the UK owing to a lack of suitably qualified people from within the UK. It is both a business and a national security question.

One area in which we simply must improve, as the Chair of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire suggested, is redressing the gender balance and the under-representation of women across the engineering sector. New research by EngineeringUK reveals that many girls rule out careers in science and engineering by the time they are only 14 years old. The UK has the lowest number of women scientists and engineers of all EU countries, fewer than 9% of girls opt for physics at GCSE level and 25% of schoolgirls think that science careers are most suited to boys. I remember hearing powerful evidence from the chief executive of Brompton Bicycle about looking for a female design engineer; candidates simply did not come forward. He wanted a female engineer precisely for a different way of thinking and problem solving, and for the new capacities that she could bring into his company.

Of all OECD countries, we currently languish at 21st for intermediate technical skills. I thought that at this stage I would introduce some partisan rancour. One would think that the Government would be doing all that they could to promote engineering and science and to develop a rigorous approach to vocational education and technical skills. We could have had a modern skills settlement in the Gracious Speech. That would have been far more useful to British competitiveness than grandstanding on a European referendum.

Although I am happy, indeed delighted, to pay tribute to the Minister’s excellent work on promoting mathematics in schools and encouraging greater female take-up of mathematics, sadly, the Government have not fulfilled the other side of the equation. Instead, they have devalued apprenticeships, undermined careers guidance by abandoning the statutory duty to provide work experience and downgraded a successful qualification in the engineering diploma. From the Committee’s evidence, it seems difficult to substantiate the Government’s claim in their response that they considered the views of the engineering sector carefully when downgrading the diploma in the infamous paragraph 17.

Like the Chair of the Select Committee, I also look forward to seeing those responses, because the evidence is unequivocal. National Grid suggests that downgrading the diploma will make it a less attractive option to schools. Meanwhile, the Engineering Employers Federation stated that the downgrading of diplomas has not sent out the signal to employers and young people that the Government are serious about the status and value of vocational education. I could go on.

In light of that damning verdict from the sector’s leading employers’ federation, will the Minister enlighten us as to how exactly she considered carefully the engineering sector’s views on the process of the downgrade? The Opposition agree with the EEF’s verdict and support the Committee’s position that the downgrading of the diploma represents a poor message about how much the Government value engineering education. It is all very well for the Government to suggest that they are now consulting on a replacement, but it is difficult to find fault with the Committee’s simple argument that any new plans could have been developed before the decision to downgrade. Indeed, that is arguably representative of elements of the Government’s education agenda.

We all support a rigorous grounding in core subjects, and it would be impossible not to welcome, along with other hon. Members, the increasing number of pupils studying triple science and A-level mathematics, as the Government outlined in their response. The point about the EBacc, however, is not that such core subjects are not an important part of a well-rounded education for all—of course they are. The point is in the narrowness, both the incentive it provides to schools to narrow an academic offer and, more importantly, the numbers of students it affects. As the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out, that can often lead to perverse outcomes.

A case in point is design and technology. Manufacturers and engineers have made it clear that they are troubled by its removal from key stage 4 as a compulsory subject.

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[Tristram Hunt]

If they are less unhappy with the new curriculum, I look forward to reading their comments in due course.

What we need is the rigour not just of the past but of the future. Of course, the Government have belatedly announced their proposals for a technical baccalaureate, and that is a welcome change of tone. When the Labour party announced its plans for a TechBacc, the Government dismissed our proposed gold-standard vocational qualification as something that would

“leave millions of state school pupils unemployable.”

If that is not talking down vocational education, I do not know what is.

Labour’s technical baccalaureate would have a work experience requirement, and businesses told Labour’s skills task force that such a requirement is crucial. We would also place control over accrediting courses for the TechBacc qualification in the hands of business. Rolls-Royce or Jaguar Land Rover, for example, which, as has been mentioned, are going to transform the skills training economy in the west midlands with the i54 development, could be involved in designing the content of engineering education. That is in contrast to the Government’s vision for the TechBacc as an institutional performance measure—a wrap-up performance measure— rather than as a gold-standard qualification.

Mr Walker, sadly you were not here, but in the previous debate we discussed the Education Committee’s seventh report. I endorse the concerns expressed in this report, which echo those of that report, that the Government have removed the statutory duty for work experience. In the public consultation to Alison Wolf’s excellent report, 89% of respondents did not believe that the duty should be removed, and with employers routinely complaining, as we have heard this afternoon, about the lack of workplace knowledge and the arguably poor employability of many young people, the Government must consider whether scrapping work experience is a good idea.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The hon. Gentleman is right on one level. Work experience, when done well, can provide a really good opportunity to get an insight into either a sector of our economy or the world of work. Too often, however, work experience for 14 to 16-year-olds is not rewarding at all and can put people off work. Schools often scratch around trying to find enough employers to provide what is, basically, a sitting service for two weeks at the end of year 10 and the start of year 11. It has to be valued and it has to be good, and sometimes that is not possible at 14 to 16. That is why I think that the emphasis on later, and quality, work experience is much more valuable.

[Tristram Hunt]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right that bad work experience serves no purpose. The onus is clearly on the responsibility to deliver an effective work placement. Once careers guidance is downgraded—as we have discussed—our worry is whether the capacity to offer rewarding work experience and work placements will be there in schools. We will see how this rolls itself out, but with careers, work experience and work placements there is a genuine concern that the Government’s emphasis and attention are not where they could be, precisely at the time when so many young people face the real possibility of unemployment.

Some points in the Government’s response are welcome. Clearly, the new accountability proposals are a small step in the direction of correcting the narrow focus of the EBacc as the sole performance measure. The Opposition also welcome the progress made on university technical colleges, which play a small but vital role in delivering engineering excellence. We have heard about the work of Sir Anthony Bamford and JCB but, as the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) suggested, they are not the universal answer, and we must ensure that science and technology is delivered across mainstream schooling.

It is clear that although both sides of the House may share a similar ambition for a dynamic engineering sector at the heart of a rebalanced economy, the Opposition believe that we have a cast-iron commitment to creating the parity that is needed between academic and high quality vocational education routes, so as to educate the next generation of engineers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank the members of the Select Committee for their comprehensive report. We have had very interesting speeches from the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), and my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), and I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), for some elements of his speech.

I am pleased that we all agree that scientific, engineering and technological innovation has a critical role to play in the future of the UK economy. We all know that we are in a global race. We need a population that is at least as mathematically skilled and technologically literate as those of China, Singapore, Brazil and all the other emerging countries, and we have a considerable way to go to achieve that. At the moment, we have the smallest proportion of 16 to 18 year-olds studying mathematics in the OECD.

In my constituency, I know the vital role that engineering plays from the apprentices at RAF Marham, who will shortly be working on the new Lightning II joint strike fighter, the most advanced fighter jet in the world, and from G’s Growers in the food and farming industry, who do laser levelling of the land. That shows that high-tech engineering applications apply across many different industries. One thing we are doing in the new design and technology curriculum is widening the industrial focus, to ensure that schools are able to work with local industries that offer those types of skills. The Government are committed to increasing the number of young people studying STEM subjects.

I agree with the comments made today about getting the message across on a broad level. I have held a number of round tables recently with people from the engineering sector, about how we need to get the message across broadly to parents, as well as to teachers and the wider community, about the fulfilment and the economic value of engineering. We know that people with degrees in subjects such as maths and engineering are some of the most highly paid and sought after, and we need to get that message through from a very early age. As the world develops, there is an increasing return to skills. The correlation between our PISA—programme for international student assessment—results and economic growth has doubled over the past 30 years. There has been a 30% growth in managerial, technical and professional jobs, and we need a skilled populace able to take up those roles.

The remit of the report is 14-19 education, but the building blocks at primary school are so critical that we cannot not mention them. Importantly, we are reviewing our primary mathematics curriculum, so that it focuses much more on core arithmetic skills. It will ensure that children have their times tables, which are the basis of things such as ratio and proportion that are so important in solving multi-step problems in subjects such as engineering. We are also developing a new computing curriculum that will start in primary school. Children will learn not just to use IT programmes, but to programme things such as Scratch and Raspberry Pi from an early age. That will open their eyes, at an early age, to the opportunities that engineering brings.

I mentioned the broadening of the design and technology curriculum. We want primary schools to open children’s eyes to industries and things available for them to do in the local area, which is important for getting girls involved. There has been a lot of media commentary recently about the segregation of girls’ and boys’ toys, such as chemistry sets. As parents, we have to stand up and be counted on such issues. I have two daughters. If we allow the mindset to develop at that age that particular things, such as chemistry and physics, are boys’ things, it has a damaging effect later.

There is a strong role for design and technology, coupled with good mathematics and good computing teaching in primary school, in that it is a universal skill that is useful not only for engineering, which is of course important, but for the quantitative skills that we will need much more in subjects such as history than we did in the past. It is something that everybody has to know and should focus on.

On the design and technology curriculum, we have been working with engineering and other sectors to ensure that it is broad and high level, and that it encourages students to apply the learning they receive in mathematics and sciences. In the maths and science curriculum, we are reforming GCSEs with questions that are more open ended and have a focus that is more on problem solving, modelling and practical application, so that there is not a divide between theory and practice, but more of a continuum between subjects.

People will then understand when they study trigonometry that it is very useful for an engineering apprenticeship. Some young engineering apprentices in my constituency told me, “We had no idea that the trigonometry we used at school would actually be useful in this job, and now we’re really excited about it.” Would it not be great if, when trigonometry is first taught, the teacher brings up such applications, so that students know that they will be useful for their future careers?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The Minister is making an excellent point. Too often in education, and not just in science and technology subjects, the application for later in life is lost. Perhaps we might broaden that idea to ensure that there is always some practical example why children, from a very early age, are learning something. When I go into schools, children often have no idea why they are there: it is just somewhere they go during the day. Let us explain why education is important to them and how it will help them in later life.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree. One organisation I have talked to is PFEG—the Personal Finance Education Group—which is very supportive of the financial education programme in schools that we have added to the national curriculum. It is keen to help communicate with primary school children about which careers are likely to be available in the future, and which will have the financial rewards to support them and their families when they grow up.

There would thus be an early understanding of the value of continuing to study some of the subjects in which it may take a while for the penny to drop—we have all had moments of struggling through sums and finally getting it—and children could be encouraged by being told, “This is what you can do. This is the kind of thing you could be.” The Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) said that he wanted to be an astronaut, which is an aspirational career—I do not think you were in the Chamber, Mr Walker—but he settled for being an Under-Secretary, which I am sure we agree is an equivalent profession. Perhaps not.

We are making good progress on A-levels. The number of pupils taking A-level maths rose by 51% between 2005 and 2010. As the Committee commented, however, that is simply not enough, given that we are 200,000 mathematicians short at university and when many of those shortages are in engineering courses. We therefore need to do more to get students to do A-level maths and physics. Our stimulating physics network is particularly focused on getting girls to do physics at GCSE and A-level, which is part of our programme.

One reason why we have had such a low uptake in maths from 16 to 18, which is a key basis for engineering, is that we have not had the mid-level qualification that many other countries have. It has been all or nothing: children do the full A-level or nothing. We are creating a number of core maths qualifications, such as maths in education and industry, and we are working with Professor Tim Gowers of Cambridge university on a problem-solving qualification. We are also considering a probability and statistics qualification similar to the one offered in New Zealand, which succeeded in increasing take-up.

The core maths qualification will be part of the technical baccalaureate, and we hope that it will be part of academic programmes of study. I hope that addresses the Select Committee Chair’s aspiration to create more of a common core that all students take from 16 to 18. Clearly, students will also be able to take A-level maths or further maths, but let us make sure that they continue with the core study that is so important to whatever kind of career they go into later.

I was asked whether the technical baccalaureate is equivalent to the EBacc. No, it is not, because it is a 16-to-18 qualification, while the EBacc is a 14-to-16 qualification. The technical baccalaureate is a high-level vocational qualification that is aspirational—it includes level 3 maths—and it is also an applied qualification. It will be recorded in league tables alongside A-level, rather than at the 14-to-16 level. That is in line with Alison Wolf’s report on vocational education, which recommended that young people follow a general education curriculum until the end of key stage 4, with vocational specialist options postponed until after that stage, and explains why we have the EBacc, which is a core qualification and represents only 60% or 70% of the curriculum, so there is still space for students to study additional subjects. That is the expectation to 16, and the technical baccalaureate, the academic alternative or an apprenticeship follows from age 16 to 18.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very good question. We have introduced new papers in primary schools allowing children at the end of key stage 2—the end of their primary curriculum—to aspire to do even better by reaching a level 6, which is a higher level of achievement than was previously available to them, while the changes we hope to make to GCSEs will, I hope, drive a higher level of attainment as well. Furthermore, we have said to all state schools that they have an opportunity to visit for free a Russell group university on behalf of their students in order to aspire to do better. There is much more that we can do, however, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to do it.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to ensure that schools are able to shape the curriculum to their own pupils’ aspirations and priorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education recently announced our proposals to reform the new national curriculum. In addition to being more rigorous in the core subjects, the new national curriculum will also be much slimmer, meaning that schools will have greater freedom to design lessons that inspire and motivate all their pupils.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the Minister join me in encouraging schools to deliver a curriculum that not only meets the aspirations and priorities of pupils but reflects the needs of local employers—core skills such as maths and English as well as vigorous vocational qualifications in engineering, computer science and technology?

[Elizabeth Truss]

There is much more scope in the new national curriculum for schools to develop programmes involving design, technology and computing to prepare students for high-tech roles, as well as improving their maths and English core skills. The computing curriculum now focuses on programming and understanding how computers work, and has been developed with the British Computer Society. We are also introducing a new technical baccalaureate that will provide a high level of technical training, including maths for students up to the age of 18.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

3. What support his Department is providing to the life sciences sector.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

9. What support his Department is providing to the life sciences sector.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Our life sciences strategy, launched by the Prime Minister, has already triggered more than £1 billion of business investment in life sciences. That is good for growth and good for the NHS.

[Mr Willetts]

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend, and I recall visiting the AstraZeneca facility at Alderley park with him last year. There is a very strong life sciences cluster in the north-west. We are supporting it with extra investment in the new Manchester cancer research centre and in the Manchester collaborative centre for information research.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

At a recent meeting of the Science and Technology Committee, Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Government’s chief medical officer, talked about the increasing amount of antibiotic resistance in disease and stated that

“the apocalyptic scenario is that when I need a new hip in 20 years I’ll die from a routine infection because we’ve run out of antibiotics.”

Will the Minister therefore tell the House what steps the Government are taking to fix what some have described as the “broken pipeline” in the development of new drugs?

[Mr Willetts]

I have heard Dame Sally Davies speak eloquently about that challenge, which is why the Secretary of State for Health will, I understand, be launching an action plan on that particular issue in the spring. What we are doing in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is backing investment and ensuring a pipeline of new drugs for the future. That is what the patent box is about, it is what research and development tax credits are about and it is what the new biomedical catalyst is about. We can be confident of the support we are providing for medical research in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the excellent scheme that the Co-op has just announced. It should be celebrated and I hope that other companies will be encouraged to follow suit, because I know that giving this kind of protection to customers will be very welcome indeed. I will continue to work with her and other hon. Members on the issue.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Although I welcome the fact that university applications are up and that a higher proportion of them are from people from poorer backgrounds, will the Minister for Universities and Science join me in reminding my young constituents that, whatever the fees they are charged, they will only start paying them back once they earn more than £21,000?