Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]

Sureena Brackenridge Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Much of this debate has been about the purpose of learning—the Secretary of State began in that spirit—and I think we can all agree that the purpose of learning is both to deliver personal fulfilment, through the acquisition of understanding and competencies, and to fulfil a social purpose by providing for economic needs. John Ruskin said:

“The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.”

Apprenticeships embody—indeed, they epitomise—that purpose. A trainee learns from a mentor a skill that has use in a workplace.

The value of apprenticeships is why, when I was shadow Minister for universities, further education and skills, and subsequently the Minister in 2010, I set about revitalising the apprenticeships system. I knew that apprenticeships were well understood by employers, were widely recognised by the public and could be attractive to trainees.

I will make a point on adult learning, provoked by the excellent contribution by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). It is vitally important to understand that in order to skill our workforce and provide it with the necessary competencies to meet the Government’s economic ambitions, we really do have to reskill existing workers as well as making practical and vocational education attractive to new entrants to the workplace. Simply as a matter of numbers, if we train more young people but do not retrain the existing workforce, we will never deliver the capacity needed to fill the skills gaps and deal with the skills shortages that, as has been said repeatedly, inhibit our ability to drive the economy forward.

The Bill is about the management and maintenance of standards of apprenticeships. I understood why that mattered so much, which is why I set about elevating the practical, the vocational and the technical. I believe that practical, vocational and technical learning is as important as academic accomplishment. It has been a myth perpetuated by the establishment—I am inclined to say “the liberal establishment,” but I do not want to damn the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, having praised him so nicely—that the only form of prowess that counts comes through academic learning. That myth has been so pervasive that a former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, set out the extraordinary, bizarre ambition that 50% of people should go to university.

The number of people who go to university should be about their tastes, talents, aptitudes and abilities. We should not set a target and then shoehorn people into a system in order to meet it; we should allow a system to reflect those aptitudes, tastes and talents. Many people’s abilities rightly lead them not to an academic education but to a practical one, yet we have underpowered and undervalued practical learning for so long in this country, and we continue to do so.

Deep at the heart of that fault has been the careers service. As hon. Members have mentioned, the careers advice and guidance that people have got has guided them—even when it did not suit them—into an academic route that has ill-served them. Even though it has landed them with immense debts, it has rendered them unable to get the job that would allow them to pay off those debts readily. So it is really important that we look again at that advice and guidance.

As I have mentioned, when I was the Minister I created a statutory duty on schools to offer independent advice and guidance, but I should have insisted that it was to be given face to face, with a careers adviser visiting a careers fair or holding personal interviews with students to set out the various options available. Unfortunately, teachers, who have typically been to university themselves, know that route well, and they are inclined to say to young people, “Why don’t you do what I did, and follow the route that I took?” They are often less well informed about the practical and vocational routes that would lead people to acquire the kinds of skills that, as we have all said, are vitally important.

I should, at the outset of my remarks, have referred Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I am associated with universities. Indeed, I ought also to say that my background is entirely academic. I studied at two universities, Nottingham and Cambridge, and I have taught in two as well, so I do not really have any practical skills myself, unlike my dear father, who could turn his hand to almost anything—there was nothing he could not do, practically. I have to send out for a man in the village if I want anything done. So my case is not born of any personal prejudice. Indeed, maybe it is born of a certain envy of those that can make and do things in the way that Ruskin described.

[Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will happily give way. The hon. Lady is now going to test me on my practical incompetence.

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I have a couple of points to make. Does the right hon. Member acknowledge the important role that universities play in supporting technical advanced education? Does he also agree that, under the stewardship of the last Government, we saw a decimation of specialist careers guidance in schools?

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, of course I acknowledge that role. It is important to point out that many of the universities do great work. I would not want to disparage that work, and the hon. Lady is right to draw the House’s attention to it.

The point I was really making is that, sadly, many people are driven down a pathway that is just not right for them. That is because of the underestimation of the significance of practical accomplishment, both at an intellectual level—the unwillingness to recognise that practical accomplishment is of a high order—and at a practical level in terms of the advice that people are often given and may later regret. It is not easy for a young person to know quite what path to take, and if the advice they get skews them towards one route or another, it is fairly likely that they will be ill equipped to make a considered judgment. I am simply making the argument for, at the very least, a degree of equality about the advice we give to people.

This Bill is questionable in a number of respects, and in particular, as has been highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and others, in the way that it presents the future management and control of apprenticeships and the standards associated with them. It is right that employers play a key role in that process, but the Bill is silent on the role of employers.

I am not an unbridled admirer of the Institute for Apprenticeships. I did not create it. In my time as Minister, and indeed as shadow Minister, the standards were guaranteed by sector skills councils. I would have gone for a sector-based approach myself. Had I stayed in office, I would probably have developed that further and emulated the German approach by establishing guilds. I began to lay some of the foundations for that as Minister, and I would have gone for such an approach rather than where we ended up. Having said that, what is critical about either that kind of sectoral approach or the apprenticeship institute being abolished by the Bill is the role of employers in ensuring that what is taught and tested meets a real economic need. We cannot detach that economic need from the structure by which we guarantee the quality of apprenticeships.

So, there is the issue of quality, and again the Bill is unconvincing in that respect. My right hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that if quality is lowered, the numbers can be increased. Indeed, the Labour Government prior to 2010 introduced programme-led apprenticeships, which were taught entirely outside of the workplace. They were still called apprenticeships but were unrelated to any particular employer or sector. That is not the way forward, and any diminution of standards will further undermine the status of practical learning. I simply say to the Minister that if the Secretary of State is going to take back control—to borrow a popular phrase—it is vital that simultaneously we hear more during the passage of the legislation about how standards will be maintained, because at the moment we have few assurances to that effect.

I will say a word on numbers, partly to advertise my own effectiveness in government. When I became the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, I was able, due to the promotion of apprenticeships, to drive their number to the highest level in modern times. I became the Minister in 2010. By 2011/12, we achieved 521,000 apprenticeships. That has never been equalled since, and we are now down to about 340,000. To say a word about previous Labour Governments, I inherited 280,000 apprenticeships, and the average number of apprenticeship completions from 2000 to 2009-10 was less than 100,000 a year.

As we debate these matters going forward, it is vital that the Government commit to the apprenticeship as a key determiner of their skills policy. The number of apprenticeships and their quality will allow the Government to drive up skills levels and, therefore, to meet economic need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I start with a fundamental point, which is that education does not always have to happen in a classroom. That is essentially what the Bill is about. Under the last Government, we saw a failure to tackle deep-rooted skills mismatches, a stubbornly high proportion of working-age people lacking essential skills and a severe shortage of higher technical training. As a result, our workforce struggled to meet the demands of a technology-driven economy, while employers faced persistent skills shortages.

This Bill is different. It abolishes the outdated Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers its functions to Skills England. This is a monumental shift that creates a unified, agile and responsive skills system. Can the Minister assure us that the Bill will underpin what good government is about—listening to the needs of businesses, workers and learners; that it will allow more people, young and old, to earn while they learn and develop skills that will serve them well for life; and that by improving access to these opportunities up and down the country, we will drive growth, reduce youth unemployment and improve life chances for so many people?

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is eloquent in setting out the skills challenges of the Black Country. My constituency neighbours hers, and locally 40% of jobs need level 4 skills, but only 16% of people have those skills. That is the challenge we face locally. Does she agree that Skills England should be set up and based in an area of the country that desperately needs a skills upgrade, such as the Black Country?

[Mrs Brackenridge]

I absolutely welcome that intervention and support it wholeheartedly. Communities such as ours have felt and seen the decline, and the Government are laser focused on reversing that to unlock talent and opportunities, and to give our residents a better chance to get their futures back.

In the past few weeks I have been honoured to meet many impressive apprentices, from those at Wolverhampton Homes, who are ensuring that residents’ council housing is safe and well maintained, to Evie and Jake at Collins Aerospace, who are working on the future of flight and defence, as well as apprentices from Jaguar Land Rover, Halfords, BMW, Enterprise Mobility and Caterpillar. We have seen the consequences of a fragmented, outdated skills system, but with the Bill we now have a bold new direction that will empower workers, support businesses and drive economic growth across our country. The Bill will support apprenticeships now and into the future, and I urge the House to support it.