Careers Guidance in Schools

Debate between Stephen Morgan and Ben Bradley

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for bringing forward this timely and helpful debate, on an issue that is vital to the future of young people and to our country. I know all Members will watch the progress of the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) with interest. It has Labour’s support.

We have heard from a number of speakers on a range of important issues, including access, quality, frequency, variety, consistency, and how fruitful partnerships are between businesses and schools. They make a real difference to the outcomes for young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) reminded us how seriously our party takes the issue; my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made it a centrepiece of his speech at party conference. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about how early young people can make decisions that affect their lives, and how those should be backed up by good advice. A number of Members raised how good-quality careers advice helps social mobility, the impact of the pandemic on the jobs market, and the importance of getting advice early.

At the heart of the debate is a desire to ensure that young people are ready for work and for life. There has been a noticeable surge in that sentiment since the pandemic. While parents will always want to see their children succeed academically, with high attainment in subject-based learning, many are increasingly concerned that their children should leave school as well rounded individuals with the skills to succeed in the wider world; yet the availability and quality of careers advice remains patchy, and the Government must move further and faster to outfit children with the skills that they need.

Teachers, parents, children and business communities agree. According to Parentkind’s 2021 “Parent Voice” report, just half of parents say that their school offers good careers advice. The Centre for Education and Youth’s “Enriching Education Recovery” report makes it clear that the vast majority of teachers, parents and children agree that there should be improvements to access. That is echoed by the business community. In 2019, a CBI survey said that 44% of employers felt that young people leaving education were not work ready. It also highlighted the geographic variation in engagement with employers in education settings. I visited St Edmund’s Catholic School in my constituency last week, which has a very good offer, but more broadly students in rural and coastal communities face a postcode lottery in access to joined-up support.

The Sutton Trust has concluded:

“All pupils should receive a guaranteed level of careers advice”;

yet a recent Careers England survey tells us that three quarters of schools have insufficient, limited or no funding with which to deliver what is needed. About a third of secondary schools say that they receive the equivalent of £5 per student, with 5% receiving just £2. The inclusion of the Gatsby benchmarks as part of the DFE’s statutory guidance on careers education represents welcome and modest progress, but ultimately, despite a northern powerhouse strategy in 2016, a careers strategy in 2017, the “Skills for Jobs” White Paper in January 2021 and the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, little action has been taken to address the postcode lottery that our children face in accessing the skills and opportunities that they need in school to navigate the world of work.

Labour is backing pupils, parents, businesses and educators with its pledge to give every child access to quality careers advice in their school. Our plan would allow children to access a professional careers adviser one day a week. That would be achieved by increasing the Careers and Enterprise Company’s grant funding, allowing it to employ more advisers in every school. That would enhance the ability to strengthen links between schools and local employers across the board, guaranteeing standards and eliminating the current postcode lottery.

Practical careers advice is closely linked to the invaluable hands-on experience that children get during periods of work experience. Here again, we find a record of failure from successive Conservative-led Governments. The next Labour Government would introduce six weeks’ worth of compulsory work experience, reversing its removal from the curriculum by the coalition Government and equipping young people with the skills that they need. In addition to support for schools, we will work with businesses, communities and others to ensure that they offer the placements needed. Once again, Labour is restoring a skills-led agenda for our children, while successive Conservative Governments have mortgaged their future.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point about the need for careers advice. We would all love for young people to spend more time with business, engaging with different kinds of work and getting to grips with what they want to do in life. He says that the Labour party is committed to a statutory six weeks of work experience per child. How does he envisage that he will find all those placements in his communities, and where will the capacity come from to deliver that level of experience?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. We have already heard a number of examples of how businesses are working closely with schools across the country, and we want to amplify that message even further.

Improved careers advice in schools must be a key building block in our children’s lives, and I therefore have a number of questions to ask the Minister. Alongside academic attainment, enhanced vocational and technical qualifications, and university, does the Minister agree that careers advice must play a much larger role in getting young people ready for work? Will she adopt Labour’s pledges to ensure that schools have the funding and structures in place that are needed to deliver this? I would also be keen to hear her reflections on the availability and quality of careers guidance in schools, and particularly on the disparity in access that exists for students at maintained schools.

We owe it to the next generation to get this right. From an economic perspective, we cannot afford not to.