Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I agree that there are lots of job opportunities in the years to come in clean technology, green jobs and much more besides. That is why we have started work very quickly to begin the process of legislating to establish Skills England, which already exists in shadow form. It has already undertaken an audit of what more is required. I know that there are lots of fantastic new jobs out there connected to construction and engineering that align very much with our drive towards net zero. I am more than happy to ensure that the hon. Lady gets a meeting on the topic.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

There has never been greater urgency for us to equip our young people with the skills they need to enter a career in farming, yet only half of those who took level 3 agricultural apprenticeships in Cumbria last year completed them, and no level 4 apprenticeships were available. Will the Secretary of State look at this worrying situation, pay personal attention to it, and provide the funding necessary for us to have agricultural apprenticeships in Britain’s leading agricultural county?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am more than happy to look personally at the issue that the hon. Gentleman sets out, to ensure that we do more in this area. He will be aware that we have a review under way of level 3 qualifications, but we know that as a country we need to do much more on level 4 and 5 qualifications as well. If he will share further information with me, I will happily look into the matter.

Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is unacceptable that disabled families are faced with choices about their children’s education that parents of children who are not disabled are not.

During the election campaign, I spoke to another woman, Julia, and had the pleasure of meeting her 18-year-old son Oscar, who has cerebral palsy, which affects his right side, and epilepsy. For 10 years, he had received free home-to-school transport, but now his parents have to make the case every year for why he should continue to receive that support to reach his sixth form. Thanks to the new costs, his mum has had to withdraw Oscar from one of his sessions at his weekend care provision, because she cannot afford both. Despite the new charges, there is still no guarantee that their application will be approved. She said that life is hard enough without this discrimination and pressure.

Another mother, in Thurrock, told me about her ongoing fight to secure transport for her daughter. Twice her daughter was refused passenger transport to the education setting she attended and twice the family successfully appealed. That mother said:

“As parents to children with SEND we have to fight for every single step, for their existence. Fighting for what is right, what our children are entitled to.”

This is the reality for thousands of families across the country. This disruption at such a vital point in education can be devastating, with serious impacts on a young person’s mental health and development. Let us be clear: this places a financial barrier to education in the way of disabled children and their families that other families simply do not have to face.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member acknowledge that lots of local authorities, and indeed lots of schools, seek to do the right thing? Councils in Cumbria have more than doubled their spending on SEND transport in the last five years, but is it not the worst thing about it, from a local authority perspective, that councils and schools that do the right thing get penalised? Is it not right that we instead support all local authorities and schools to support special educational needs children without disadvantaging them or their families?

[Jen Craft]

As I have said previously, the important thing is to see a long-term goal where disabled children are truly able to receive a mainstream, inclusive education, so that we get out of this cycle of families having to pay to transport their children miles and miles from where they live.

Apprenticeships and T-Levels

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Sir Christopher. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), whose speech was really interesting. I also praise him for his tenacity, expertise and seriousness on this subject.

I will restrict my remarks to the issues of T-levels and apprenticeships in tourism and agriculture, which are two huge employers in my constituency and around the rest of Cumbria—some 60,000 people in Cumbria work in tourism and there are 1,500 farms in my constituency alone. Those are hugely connected, without a doubt. For example, something like 20 million people visit the lakes every year, and we know that many of them come because of the beauty of the landscape, which is maintained by our farmers.

In terms of our workforce, 80% of the entire working-age population living in the Lake district already work in hospitality and tourism. Therefore, if we do not do something to bring people in, to create more affordable homes, to build our workforce, or, specifically, to train and retrain our young people so that we do not carry on losing over a third of them every single generation, we are in serious trouble.

When it comes to T levels, there is no doubt whatever that employers in the tourism economy of Cumbria strongly believe, as I do, that T-levels are an important potential source for boosting the pipeline of skilled workers, and that offering level 3 qualifications will enhance young people’s employability and enable progression to higher education, linking, for example, with the University of Cumbria’s excellent graduate apprenticeship programme.

Those employers recognise, and strongly believe, that the previous Government delayed and took too long to introduce the T-level in catering, and are pressuring this Government on that. I met Baroness Smith of Malvern just last week to raise that point directly with her, and I ask the Minister to look at this issue again. Please will she consult employers within Cumbria to make sure that the T-level in catering, and other equivalent level 3 and level 4 qualifications, is made available so that we can qualify our children for this important area of work? Some 85% of employers who host T-level students—when that is available—report improved access to skilled talent, so I ask the Minister to take this seriously.

I will quickly switch over to apprenticeships in the agricultural sector. The total number of apprenticeship starts in agriculture in Cumbria for the year before last—the last year that we have data for—was 140. Only 70 were completed and no higher-level apprenticeships, at level 4 and above, were accomplished. We have 1,500 farms; that is far too few people coming forward as potential entrants. We have had all the discussions this week about succession, which is so very important, but the decline in new farm entrants threatens the sector’s long-term viability.

The future of the farming sector is also exacerbated by the loss of educational infrastructure. The previous Government failed to intervene to save Cumbria’s agricultural college, Newton Rigg, and although Kendal college and other FE and HE institutions around the county are doing their best to fill the gap, we still seriously feel that loss.

The UK provides 55% of its own food. Apprenticeships and succession in farming are crucial to our food security. The agricultural policies of this Government and the previous one have disincentivised farming production, which is fateful and foolish. This week we have seen the complaints, quite rightly, about the inheritance tax changes, which will lead to more farmland moving into ownership of equity and large corporations, and not being used for food production. Our failure to grow the workforce is also enormously significant.

I ask the Minister to look closely at higher-level apprenticeships in agriculture, to address the gap in advanced agricultural training at level 4 and above, and to develop leadership skills among future farmers to sustain the sector and the rural economy as a whole. Will she also introduce agricultural degree apprenticeships, in partnership with the University of Cumbria and local colleges, to create a pipeline for agricultural leadership? I will leave it there at four minutes.

Family and Work Visas

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Mr Pritchard. I give my serious thanks to the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) for bringing an important issue to this place. Britain should control our borders and regulate migration effectively, and we should do it humanely and in our own interests, yet so often we do not do that at all. We obsess about the shallow politics of it all and we ignore practicalities for the people involved and for businesses in Britain and the wider economy.

There are two areas to cover. The first is family visas and the minimum income requirement. I ask the Minister to ensure that the driving principle is about what people need to earn in order to support a family, not a ham-fisted way of limiting numbers. The current income floor is £29,000—up from £18,600 under the Conservatives. The plan to take it to £38,700 will absolutely divide families. I ask the Minister to consider the impact upon child poverty, child development and family welfare. Will she assess the impact of splitting up children from one or both of their parents, which has happened in my constituency? I have been talking to constituents near Grange-over-Sands recently. I also spoke to a gentleman in Oxenholme, and he and his wife would not qualify under the rules even as they are. Will the Minister look carefully at the policy and ensure that it does not destroy families by splitting children from their parents, or parents from one another? That would be a deeply unpleasant thing for this Government to do, the scheme having been designed by the previous Government.

Because of time, I will move on to skilled work visas. The threshold is moot and is being discussed. In a letter to me just a few days ago, the Minister said:

“Raising the salary criteria is designed to ensure that resident workers’ wages cannot be undercut and ensures that the Skilled Worker route is not used as a source of low-cost labour.”

Yes, I completely agree, but will she accept that things are different in some parts of our country? I will give a quick run-through. The Lake district is the most populated national park in the country. Some 80% of the working-age population in the lakes already work in hospitality and tourism. There is no reservoir of talent for us to delve into. What we desperately need to do is control the excessive numbers of second homes and holiday lets, and build genuinely affordable homes for local people so that we can build our workforce that way. We also need to upskill our young people and stop them leaving our communities, so that they can remain and contribute to the workforce.

There is no doubt whatever that a smallish population, serving the biggest visitor destination in the country outside London, will always need to import labour, so we desperately need consideration. The chief of Cumbria Tourism, which serves our community so well and represents businesses right across our area, said:

“Without legal migration Cumbria (in particular central Lakes) will suffer in terms of labour shortages. We don’t have enough chefs, we don’t have enough experienced Managers and we don’t have enough people in customer service roles. All roles that we didn’t struggle to fill when...overseas workers were able to take up jobs more freely.”

To finish, I will give a picture of what this issue means on a macro level for our economy. Some 66% of hospitality and tourism businesses in the lakes and dales are operating below capacity because they do not have enough staff. It is good to control our borders, but let us do so humanely. Let us control our borders in a way that works for Britain, rather than damaging our economy.

School Transport: Northumberland

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an absolute joy to serve under your guidance, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is becoming almost as much of a regular in this place as our recently departed friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As he rightly set out, he, I and the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) are the big three—we represent the three largest constituencies in England. The hon. Members for Hexham and for North Northumberland made really great points, not just on behalf of their constituents in Northumberland, but on an issue that is of huge significance across the country, particularly in rural communities such as mine.

The hon. Member for Hexham talked about rural communities paying more and getting less. Sadly, that is absolutely how things are. About a year ago, the Rural Services Network calculated that if a single region was created from rural England and compared to the geographical regions of England, it would be comfortably the poorest. Although the depiction of rural life is often full of a bucolic, ideal, wonderful and high quality of life—of course rural places are beautiful, and we are proud to live in them—poverty is undoubtedly real, and the cost of transport and the distance people have to travel to get to the services they need are a major driver of that.

As the hon. Members for Hexham and for North Northumberland set out, one issue we face in rural communities is that, with huge catchment areas, the divide between two school catchments can be incredibly blurred. Someone may well be sending their child to the nearest school, but it may technically not be the one in catchment, so they are left having to pay a significant amount for their child to go to that school. As the hon. Member for Hexham rightly pointed out, people often find that one of their children can get a bus to school but that the other cannot. That is definitely the case in parts of my constituency.

This problem is exacerbated by the reduction in the number of small village schools over the last few decades. In my constituency I have at least three schools with fewer than 20 children and three schools that have closed in the last few years as well—in Ravenstonedale, Satterthwaite and Heversham. The communities around those schools are now, and have been for a generation in some cases, forced to make alternative arrangements. That has largely come about because of the growth in second home ownership, unchecked, in many communities in the lakes and dales, which has gobbled up the homes available for a full-time permanent population. Without that, where are the children coming from? Where are affordable houses being built to replace those second homes? There are some, but nowhere near enough. It is all part of the fabric of rural life, which comes under enormous pressure. The community’s school is at risk and may go, and bus services are lost, along with the post office, as mentioned by the hon. Member for North Northumberland.

The patchwork of rural life under such strain is often maintained by decent public transport links, if they exist, but they are often lacking in rural communities. I will come back to the debate about £2 and £3 bus fares. It is hugely regrettable that the Government have increased that cap on bus fares. As I often say, any bus fare cap is of no use if there is no bus to use it on.

It is important to look at this issue seriously, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hexham for bringing it forward. One reason a child might not be sent to the nearest school is that that child has special educational needs. That may be formalised, and I have some figures on that. We have seen a 24% increase in the number of children travelling to special schools in the past five years. We have seen the number of EHCPs increase from 105,000 in 2015 to 230,000 across the country in 2023.

The County Councils Network estimates that by 2027 spending on special needs transport will have trebled over a decade to a vast total of £1.1 billion. Many children do not have an EHCP because there is an incredible backlog, and there are people who have special needs who are not formally assessed. Nevertheless, parents will send those children to the schools more able to cope with them and provide the best quality of education. If that is not in catchment and the child does not have an EHCP, parents pay for that themselves. Many parents in my communities are struggling as a result. They cannot afford it but, for the sake of their children, they do it.

The use of taxis over the past five years to get children with special educational needs to school has gone up by 36%. The school and the local authority between them bear the cost of that. It is encouraging to hear the new Government talk about special educational needs and try to focus on this as a crisis to be fixed. The Liberal Democrats believe strongly that there should be a national body for special educational needs, with additional support for local authorities and schools to fund provision. We should not be in the situation where those schools that do the right thing by children with special educational needs are penalised for doing so, and end up losing staff as a consequence of paying the costs of those children they have rightly taken on and supported.

I will talk about the communities across the Pennines in Westmorland and Furness. We have historic spend factors that account for 28% of our high-needs allocation and which do not reflect the changes in demand and the costs incurred in the past six years. Historical spend factors mean that Westmorland and Furness is funded 45% less than other high-cost authorities, and the impact is felt by children across our communities.

It is worth bearing in mind that Northumberland and Cumbria have very high visitor numbers. Although we do not pay for the education of visitors, we do pay for lots of other services that visitors use when visiting Northumberland national park, the lakes and the Yorkshire dales. There are 20 million visitors to Cumbria in the average year. That costs the local authority, and there is nothing in the funding formula to recognise that, to ensure that we do not dip into money that might otherwise be spent on education, in order to prop up other services, because we have all those visitors and do not have the money to pay for and support them.

When talking about school transport, we should pay attention to the plight of young people over 16. I am deeply concerned, along with others who represent rural constituencies, that although we rightly have young people continuing their education beyond 16, as is mandatory, we do not support or fund them to get to those places of education. It is probably quite straightforward in an urban area, where people could just walk to their nearest sixth form, but students at Kendal college are coming from right across Westmorland and north Lancashire, travelling maybe 40 or 50 miles in one direction to get there each day.

The sixth forms at the Queen Katherine school and Kirkbie Kendal school also take young people from far outside Kendal. At the Lakes school in Troutbeck Bridge, people travel from Grasmere, Ambleside, Windermere and the likes to get there. Dallam school takes children from the rest of south Cumbria and north Lancashire. There is also Ullswater community college. Kirkby Stephen and Appleby sixth forms are really small and in wonderful schools, and young people travel there at great cost to themselves and their parents. A student might find their brother in year 9 has his place at school funded, but they may have to pay £700 or £800 a year for the privilege. As a result, young people are choosing not to go into further education and take A-levels; they are choosing other routes instead, because they simply cannot afford to do so. That is why this issue is so important. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Hexham has managed to secure this debate, because it is of great significance to all of us who represent rural communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend ahead of the election—and what a brilliant champion he is for Burnley and his constituents. I would be very happy to visit again. As part of setting out our commitment to further education, at the Budget we put in place an additional £300 million, alongside £300 million of capital funding for our colleges.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Tim Shannon—I mean, Farron. [Laughter.]

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I are indeed never seen in the same place together. [Laughter.]

Stramongate nursery school in Kendal faces closure following an Ofsted inspection. If it had been a regular school, it would have had help to remain open under special measures, but as it is, the nursery has to close. Will the Secretary of State pay attention to this particular issue to ensure that the children and parents are protected, and that childcare can continue?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I will look carefully at the case and ensure that the hon. Gentleman has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss it further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I know about the good work of the Golf Foundation, under the leadership of Brendon Pyle. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss its work, specifically the Unleash Your Drive programme.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Sport, PE and outdoor education have a huge impact on building resilience among young people, helping them to gain a love of learning as well as the outdoors, which can be great for them for their whole lives. Does the Minister agree that it is a great shame that just the other week the Welsh Senedd voted down by a single vote the Bill proposed by his colleague and my friend Sam Rowlands which would have made outdoor education an experience that every young person in Wales could access? Will the Minister go one further and back my equivalent Outdoor Education Bill, which will receive its Second Reading on 21 June, so that this place ensures that every young person in primary and secondary schools has the ability to access an outdoor education experience for free?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman has been entirely consistent for some time in talking about the importance of outdoor education, about which I am happy to agree. I am not sure it is always necessarily a case for law, but it is certainly important for young people to get outdoors, to be in touch with nature and to see the countryside, as well as running around enjoying PE and sporting activities.

Mindfulness in Schools

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Gray, and a genuine pleasure to follow the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). I too am deeply moved by the response of Esther Ghey to the outrageous murder of her daughter. Her example of compassion and the determination to see the good in others and to demonstrate forgiveness to others is a sobering rebuke and a deeply moving thing, which will do vast amounts of good—it has certainly affected me.

I want to address the issue before us because the issue of wellbeing among our young people is at crisis levels. In the time I have been in Parliament, I have recognised emerging issues through the volumes of casework I receive on particular issues over time. Undoubtably, the biggest spike in issues raised, casework correspondence and conversations I have with people in my constituency is around young people’s mental health. The word “crisis” is bandied about too freely, but it feels like we have a crisis. We could say with some accuracy that people feel more free to talk about mental health and wellbeing these days, whereas perhaps they were more buttoned up a generation or two ago. That is a good thing, but it is also blindingly obvious that we are in an era where our society and culture breed shockingly bad mental health, for a variety of reasons.

It is easy to point the finger at social media and the internet, but I think it has a lot to do with it. In the 1960s, Andy Warhol famously declared that in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes, but he didn’t know the half of it. Every kid is famous all the time now, if they want to be, and scrutinised, and observed, and feeling judged and maybe being judged at every moment. To put it slightly trivially, when I was 15, if I made a prat of myself over a girl, eight people knew about it and I got over it. Now, however, that sense of shame, for something that is perhaps very minor, can end up being multiplied and can even cause people lasting and sometimes fatal damage. So, I am deeply concerned about the situation within our culture today and I want to look for solutions that I think will have an impact and make a difference by building resilience for our young people—not only the young people of tomorrow, but the young people of today—as they grow into adults.

Being a Member of Parliament for a constituency with something like 25 outdoor education centres has given me a real sense of the impact of the outdoors on people’s wellbeing and mental health. Outdoor education can take place in so many different ways, but there is no doubt that being active and being outside, which should be common sense for a happy childhood, is unfortunately missing from many if not most young people’s experiences, especially those living in the more deprived communities in our country. It is integral to physical and mental health, and to happiness and wellbeing—we can call it mindfulness. But however we decide to describe it, access to the outdoors is absolutely crucial.

Two years ago, an NHS report found that fewer than half of our young people in the UK met the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation that young people should engage in 60 minutes of physical activity each day. So it is perhaps no surprise that over 20% of children between eight and 16 have a probable mental health disorder, so described, and that nearly a quarter of year 6 children are considered to be obese. Our physical and mental wellbeing are hugely impacted by the amount of outdoor activity that we are able to engage in.

Outdoor activity can be delivered through forest schools, or through the decision of a school in an urban or rural setting to make use of outdoor learning opportunities, or it can be in a much more specific, out-of-school residential outdoor experience. Such interventions are greatly significant and the evidence base for their value is huge—so much so that we need to make outdoor activity a priority for children. I will come back to that point in a moment.

It is often said, is it not, that it would be great if we stopped fishing people out of the river and stopped them falling in the water in the first place. If we are able to build young people’s resilience, we will hopefully tackle the number of people who are in crisis.

In our part of the world—south Cumbria—child and adult mental health services are run by wonderful people but far too few of them, so they are in desperate circumstances. I know of young people who suffer from eating disorders who were basically told, “Go away and come back when you’re skinnier, or thinner, or more ill, because we haven’t got the resources to help you at this point.” That would never be said to someone with cancer—“Come back when you’re more sick.” We need to help people at the point that they need us.

A constituent in the know told me just last week that autism assessment in south Cumbria has a waiting list of two years. We have shortages of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, specialist nurses and appropriate beds. In south Cumbria, we have no dedicated separate crisis team for young people within CAMHS. We have people who are therapists and who have been drawn into the crisis work, but doing that means they are dropping or reducing the number of people they see on their regular lists.

All these things need to be fixed, but this debate is a reminder that we would put less pressure on CAMHS if we were able to develop people’s resilience and stop them from getting into a mental health crisis in the first place.

I hope that people will forgive me for taking advantage of this debate in this way, but I also hope that what I am saying is relevant to it. By the way, the Minister’s friends are also friends of mine—Sam Rowlands, a Member of the Senedd, who I think I am right in saying represents north Wales, and Liz Smith, a Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament. Sam, Liz and I have teamed up to present separately in each of our three Parliaments, Bills that call for outdoor education to be put more front and centre. In particular, my Bill asks that every child, at primary school and at high school, should be given a guaranteed week-long funded residential outdoor experience.

I am not saying that such trips are the answer to everything, but research shows that at the end of five days on an outdoor residential trip with their teacher, a child has built up more rapport with that teacher than they would in an entire 12-month period in the classroom. It is not just about the experience of being away in the lakes or north Wales or wherever it might be; it means that, when that child goes back to school for boring old maths—sorry—on Monday, they are much more likely to listen, learn and be happy at school. They will develop a sense of teamwork, build resilience and learn things about themselves that they did not know. They will gain an understanding of how, when they are in an uncomfortable position, to get themselves out of it, and build skills that will be of lifelong value and give them lifelong comfort with and enjoyment of the outdoors. That will mean that they will choose to spend time in the outdoors throughout their childhood, as they grow older and into adulthood.

It is a relatively inexpensive ask, so I would ask the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), to seriously consider adopting my Bill—it is all his; he can take credit for it. Also, I would ask both Labour and Conservative colleagues present to please have a word with their colleagues in the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament to back Sam and Liz’s Bills in those places, too.

[Andy Carter]

I have listened very carefully to what the hon. Member has said, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. We think of schools as places that will set our children up academically and prepare them for the jobs that they will face in the future, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that schools, along with input from parents, are great places to think about the digital world that young people will live in. Mindfulness and the way that we challenge and think about how young people respond to the pressures that will sit on them should form part of the curriculum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

I do not want to go off topic too much, but I think that that is very important. One issue with youth provision of all kinds is the question of who draws it up and plans it—old people. The problem is, for people from my generation, the internet did not come along until their mid-20s. We are writing plans and looking at a world that we do not experience in quite the same way as young people, so it is crucial that young people are integral in the co-design of such programmes. These are their challenges, and we need them to lead on them.

I want to make a really practical point. If we want more young people spending time outdoors, engaging with outdoor activities, building their resilience and a love of the outdoors—if we want to tackle mental health issues at source—there is a really simple thing we could do. It might sound particularly odd, but this came up when I was at the Institute for Outdoor Learning conference two weeks ago in Ambleside in my constituency, where I had the privilege of speaking and, more importantly, of meeting lots of professionals. One of the key barriers to people making use of outdoor learning is that teachers can drive a 17-seater minibus, under 3.5 tonnes, with a section 19 permit and MiDAS training, but if teachers are required to gain a full D1 licence —this is really crucial; it is a linchpin—the cost and time involved and the pressures of the school environment create a huge barrier. Therefore, people do not take their kids on those trips. If we can tackle some of the barriers that stop people experiencing outdoor education, that would be a big step forward.

I will put one final point to the Minister before I finish. We are having this debate, in part, because of an appalling, unspeakable act of hate. I want us to do things with our young people that instil a sense of understanding difference and loving others, and that will lead them to seek to put themselves in other people’s shoes and genuinely love their neighbours. The Minister will know this because I am in communication with him and am delighted to say that we will soon, I think, meet representatives of the Lakes School and the ’45 Aid Society. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, the ’45 Aid Society is made up of the families of the holocaust survivors who were brought to Windermere in 1945. Half of the children who escaped the death camps in Europe came to Windermere—to Troutbeck Bridge, to be precise—where they were rehabilitated and began a new life.

I freely admit that my communities are in one of the least diverse bits of Britain, but the fact is that we have the legacy, between Windermere and Ambleside, of those boys who came from such a hideous experience to be rehabilitated, welcomed, loved here and sent off to do good things in the world. The prospect of a school rebuild and a lasting memorial on the site of the Lakes School is now within touching distance, so I hope the Minister would be prepared to meet—I think he said he would be—with myself, the school leaders and the representatives of the ’45 Aid Society so that we can have something at the centre of our community that helps to teach people around the country of the importance of loving people, even if they are not the same as we are.

To finish, I pay tribute to Esther Ghey for what she has said—particularly in recent times—and to the hon. Member for Warrington North for securing this debate. I would encourage us all to think about practical ways to ensure that we prepare our young people for the world ahead of them—building resilience and doing those things that we know in advance will work and make a difference.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Bexley’s apprenticeship event on 5 February will be a fantastic opportunity for local people to learn about the apprenticeships on offer in his constituency. We have transformed our apprenticeship system. People around the world look at us and say, “How on earth have you done that?” I am very happy to work with anybody, but all that is at risk. The Labour party would halve the number of apprenticeships, taking us back to square one.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Sadly, the Government did not intervene to save Cumbria’s agricultural college. However, will they decide to invest in agricultural degree apprenticeships, working with the University of Cumbria and Cumbria’s further education colleges, to make sure we have a pipeline of new leaders who can feed us and care for our environment through farming?

[Gillian Keegan]

When I was apprenticeships and skills Minister, we worked together to ensure we had the right college offer in the area that was sustainable. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education will be very happy to work on that. We are looking to expand degree apprenticeships. We have provision in place to work with providers to offer many opportunities, including in agriculture.

Apprenticeship Levy

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the apprenticeship levy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, and I am looking forward to this debate on the apprenticeship levy. As a former teacher and the former Minister for School Standards, I cannot state enough how important apprenticeships are for young people. They unlock opportunities for them, allow them to earn while they learn and drive social mobility. As the proud co-chair of the all-party group on apprenticeships and the employer of two apprentices—Mya and Jess, who are based in my constituency office—I know just how effective apprentices can be in the workplace.

There have been significant achievements in places such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, where we have had 13,240 apprenticeship starts since May 2020. One of the great standout legacies of the past 13 years of Conservative government is our outstanding record on education. Compared with 2010, over 2 million more pupils are at good and outstanding schools, and our kids are some of the best readers in the western world.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), who served with grace and honour as Minister for School Standards—a role I held briefly, although I basically kept the seat warm for his return—on his hard work in improving literacy and numeracy rates, restoring discipline in the classrooms, empowering a generation of learners and bettering educational attainment. His legacy will live on in this House and across the nation, and we are truly thankful for his service.

I served proudly with the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education when he chaired the Education Committee, and he understands, as do we all, that further education plays a vital role in providing the skills needed to revive key sectors such as manufacturing and ceramics, so that we can level up the country. We have made great strides since 2019. We introduced T-levels and the lifelong learning entitlement. Government initiatives such as the skills bootcamp scheme, which works with local employers and local authorities to fill skills gaps and vacancies in local areas, should continue to be expanded.

Apprenticeships offer a great opportunity to learn and earn, and they keep talent and skills in our local area, making a vital contribution to the labour market. The huge demand for apprenticeships is waiting to be matched by supply. Almost half of the young people registered on UCAS are interested in apprenticeships, yet only 10% go on to start one. In recent years, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of new apprenticeship starts. Since the apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017, overall apprenticeship starts have fallen from half a million in 2016-17 to just over a quarter of a million in 2022-23. That urgently needs to be reversed. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the number of apprenticeship starts for 16 to 18-year-olds has fallen by 41% since 2015-16. For 19 to 24-year-olds, it has fallen by 31%, and for those aged over 25, it has fallen by 26%.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the points he is making. Last year, more than £3 billion of the levy was not spent, I guess for many of the reasons he is setting out. In my community, many of the businesses that would love to have an apprentice find it too hard to get into the scheme. Would it be wise in an area such as mine, where one in four people work for themselves and many opportunities come through small businesses, to redirect some of the underspend to encourage small businesses to take on apprentices? That would be good news for our economy and for everybody else, for that matter.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I could not agree more: the levy should be much easier to access for small and medium-sized enterprises, and even for big levy payers, such as Lloyds Bank, which I met recently in my constituency at Saint Nathaniel’s Academy in Burslem. It said that it found it incredibly tricky to navigate the system to try to get money to the frontline. In that case, it was for digital apprenticeships and skills for those teachers and support staff, as the school went to a Google Classroom-based learning system. I will set out later how I think the levy can be reformed to make it more accessible and to ensure that more SMEs get more opportunities to take up apprenticeships. It is all well and good talking about skills, but if we do not have enough apprentices in the first place with the opportunity to access them, we will always have to overly rely on cheap foreign labour from abroad to fill vacancies. I suspect the hon. Gentleman and I have slightly different opinions on that, but the Chancellor said in the autumn statement today that he wants to see us skilling up and levelling up the opportunities for young people here.

The fall in the number of apprenticeship starts suggests that apprenticeships in their current form are not benefiting young people and helping them get into the workforce. We require businesses to invest in their existing workforce. Increasing the flexibility of the apprenticeship levy would help businesses with the cost of investment in British talent, further militating against the dependency on mass migration. Although increased collaboration between the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and the Migration Advisory Committee will not eradicate reliance on immigration for vital skills, it will shift the focus to prioritising British upskilling and offer a long-term solution to the nation’s skills shortages.

As evidenced in “The New Conservatives’ plan to upskill Britain”, which I proudly wrote with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), red wall areas have been hit especially hard by the reduced number of younger apprentices in SMEs. In northern and coastal constituencies, the number of apprenticeships has fallen, while it has grown in places such as Wimbledon and Chelsea. As the New Conservatives’ skills paper suggests, areas such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke need more home-grown apprentices so that we do not rely on cheap migrant labour to fill the skills gap. That is why it is so vital that we take on recommendations from industry and reform the levy, so that communities can benefit from apprentices.

One way the New Conservatives’ skills plan seeks to do this is by pushing for the Migration Advisory Committee to work much more closely with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, by identifying gaps in the market where unspent levy funding can be used to support the training of home-grown talent that will help to close the skills gap. With net migration standing at over 600,000 in the year to June, it is essential that we explore ways to wean the economy off cheap migrant labour, which puts immense pressure on our public services, including our schools, our NHS and our housing supply, with migrants now making up half the demand for new builds. I am confident that reforming the apprenticeship levy to allow underspends to target specific gaps in the job market will help to solve one of the UK’s most challenging long-term problems.

In the New Conservatives’ skills plan, we also raise issues surrounding the levy transfer mechanism and suggest raising the current transfer from 25% to 35%. Since the introduction of the levy five years ago, £4.3 billion has been raised by the levy but kept back by the Treasury. In 2021-22 alone, the revenue raised was £750 million—more than the entire apprenticeship budget—and according to FE Week analysis, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs pocketed an extra £415 million in the year to September 2023. I know that this is an issue for small and medium-sized businesses in Stoke-on-Trent, and I was shocked to see the Sentinel report in January this year that Stoke-on-Trent City Council was forced to send its £1 million apprenticeship underspend back to HM Treasury.

As co-chair of the APPG on apprenticeships, I have spoken to many businesses that say the system for transferring funds is immensely bureaucratic and requires excessive paperwork, which dissuades businesses from pursuing it. Our skills paper therefore sets out plans to increase the apprenticeship levy transfer to 35%. As the New Conservatives’ report sets out, the current cap at 25% limits employers making the most out of their funding, and it is difficult for businesses to transfer funding to SMEs outside their supply chain. That is why we advocate increasing the ease with which funds can be transferred by including other SMEs local to the region of the levy payer, which would keep investment local and widen access to apprenticeship funding.

The New Conservatives and I want to see a greater amount of the billions of pounds of unspent levy funding—like the £1 million underspend in Stoke-on-Trent—spent on skills locally, which will help the levelling-up agenda and assist young people in finding good career prospects near to home. However, to do that, the Government need to be brave and expand access to apprenticeship funding, as we outline in our report.

We need to allow for training to be more sensitive to labour market demands, so that we can upskill our homegrown talent. We should seize on local areas’ expertise, such as Stoke-on-Trent’s thriving video game industry, to make apprenticeships work for the economy. Alongside using unspent levy funding to support SMEs with grants, we should look to make it flexible enough to support shorter courses. Microsoft has identified that a modular approach to apprenticeships would allow apprentices to fit into the gaps in the labour market much more effectively. It says that this is essential to ensure that people are equipped with the digital skills they need to perform an increasing number of tasks.

In some cases, labour market demands do not require long courses, so making the levy more flexible will support shorter courses that meet existing needs of the business, rather than fulfilling bureaucratic apprenticeship requirements. This will enable employees to develop much-needed skills and help employers to address specific skills shortages that they face. Microsoft identifies such flexibility as being necessary for businesses to adapt to the rapidly changing requirements of digital roles, noting that the current 18-month waiting period for the digital apprenticeship standard to be approved is too long. Such long approval times stifle growth and leave employers without the skills that they need. Increasing the flexibility of the apprenticeship levy will also help Britons to upskill, improving productivity and reducing the skills gap.

In my role as the co-chair of the APPG on apprenticeships, I have also spoken with many leading businesses in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke as well as across the country, and they have outlined ideas about how to make the levy work. Policy Exchange’s excellent paper, “Reforming the Apprenticeship Levy”, makes the disappointing point that SME involvement in the apprenticeship system has plummeted since the introduction of the levy, and it states that that has wider implications because, historically, SMEs train higher proportions of apprentices, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As such, Policy Exchange has proposed a number of recommendations to streamline the process and support SME involvement in the training of apprentices, including financial support for off-the-job training. It suggests that SMEs should be supported with £2,500 to fund off-the-job training for apprentices under the age of 25, with an additional £500 on completion.

Given that FE Week reported that HMRC pocketed around £415 million generated by apprenticeship levy receipts last year, I want the Government to explore whether there is scope to use some of that underspend to back SMEs with the £3,000 payment advocated for by Policy Exchange, which believes that such support would cost around £200 million. The policy was backed by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor during the covid-19 pandemic, so I urge him to consider that to get more people doing apprenticeships once more.

For some businesses, especially SMEs, the hidden costs are often what prevents them from being able to hire an apprentice in the first place. The funding is there to support our SMEs and to support our apprentices with more than just training, and this simple change could be transformative.

Alongside reforms to the levy, I want to use this time to raise the issue of functional skills requirements, which are also a barrier to apprenticeships. For someone to be an apprentice in England, they must prove that they have good qualifications in English and maths. If they cannot do so, the Government pay to enrol them on a course and enter them into exams to prove that. That is wasting tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, because, in some circumstances, despite an older apprentice holding a degree or other level 4 qualifications, the fact that they cannot find their GCSE or even O-level certificates means that they must retake the exams.

The current focus on functional skills qualifications also poses a challenge to some hoping to complete apprenticeships, disproportionately impacting those from disadvantaged backgrounds and SME employers that are more likely to offer apprenticeships to younger and less well-educated students. I wrote to the Department for Education to raise my concerns about this issue and was disappointed with the response I received this week from the Minister, who said that they are

“currently unable to offer any flexibility here”.

If we were to relax those requirements, there would be a significant public savings benefit, meaning that money could be spent on helping businesses to support their apprentices more effectively. Over the past five years, the Government have spent £379 million on functional skills, with the per-apprentice cost increasing by 64% since 2021-22. If we reduce those costs by being more flexible about functional skills requirements, businesses will benefit.

As the co-chair of the APPG on apprenticeships, I have spoken with businesses who told me that reviewing functional skills requirements, which is also a recommendation in the New Conservatives’ skills paper, will improve retention rates for apprenticeships. That will give businesses confidence that the investment they make in new employees will be worthwhile.

Data supplied to me by Multiverse shows that 60% of apprentices undertaking functional skills exams already have degree certificates, but they do not have their school qualifications to hand, or they were schooled internationally. I do not believe that it is necessary for someone to take on extra training in English and maths if they have a degree-level qualification. A degree should be an indicator of competency in English and maths, and new recruits should be focused on developing skills that are fit for industry and not on functional skills training.

Multiverse argues that this requirement is a significant and unnecessary barrier to work. Its data shows that 74% of apprentices withdrew from their course when they were required to undertake English and maths exams. Given that fewer people have been undertaking apprenticeships since the introduction of the levy, we need innovative and simple ways to improve retention rates, and removing functional skills requirements could help to achieve that.

However, outdated attitudes towards higher education are thankfully ending. Recent polling shows that the British public are more positive about technical and vocational education than they are about university education, with 48% of parents saying that they would prefer their child to get a vocational qualification after leaving school, compared with 37% of parents who would prefer their child to go to university.

More broadly, there is support for prioritising further education and higher education equally, with 31% thinking that vocational education should be prioritised by the Government over university education and only 9% thinking that university education should be prioritised over further education. It is regrettable, therefore, that equal treatment of higher education and further education is not shown through the welfare system. Families should not be penalised if their child opts for an apprenticeship rather than other post-16 education. However, current welfare policy requires child benefit to be removed from families with children aged under 19 in apprenticeships, unlike if their child were studying for A-levels or T-levels.

More needs to be done to ensure that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit from apprenticeships rather than being short-changed by their university experience. For those with low academic attainment or opting for low-return courses, a quality apprenticeship could offer a better option for a variety of reasons. Such a route should not be closed off due to parental financial worries.

In conclusion, the over-expansion of university education by Tony Blair and new Labour has left too many young people in debt, without the skills needed to secure well-paying careers. At the same time, investment in high-skilled trades has dropped, leading to an over-reliance on cheap immigration from abroad to meet our ever-expanding list of job shortages. As the party that values hard work and aspiration, we need to reverse that trend and invest in local talent that matches local labour market demands.

The policy suggestions presented in the New Conservatives’ skills paper aim to shift the balance from Government overspending on low-return higher education and repurpose all money saved for investment in quality technical and vocational education that keeps talent local and high-skilled. That will be achieved only by both disincentivising students from poor-quality university education and incentivising them towards high-quality technical and vocational education.

Such measures also need the support of local businesses. Small and medium-sized businesses need to feel that their investment in local talent is worthwhile and supported by the Government. With renewed prioritisation for apprenticeships and other technical and vocational training and education, our country can upskill its workforce, meet labour demands without reliance on immigration, and ensure good jobs for the present are there for future generations as well.

The central message of the New Conservatives’ skills plan is to increase the parity between further and higher education funding. That means that it is essential for the Government to support all apprenticeships offered by an SME regardless of how much of the levy is used. That will help businesses and individuals get greater access to apprenticeships, which is in line with my vision to make apprenticeships a more viable option and to make clear that degrees are no longer the sole gold standard in education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is two days running that I have been called directly after the proposer of the debate. I am in a state of anguish and shock that I should be called so early.

I am pleased to be here. I am also pleased to see my good friend, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) leading today’s debate, and I look forward to other contributions from the shadow spokespersons. We have a Minister in place—I am not saying anything that is not true, because we all subscribe to this—who eats and sleeps education; a Minister who works his butt off to do the best for all pupils. Whenever he is here to answer, we all know we will get the answers we seek, because he has the same passion for the subject matter as we all have. I mean that honestly and with all sincerity, because that is how I feel about him, and I suspect others feel every bit the same.

I am aware of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North’s involvement in the APPG on apprenticeships as co-chair, and I thank him for all his work. I am a bit biased, because he is the guest speaker at my association dinner in Northern Ireland, and I am very pleased that he is coming to speak to us next year. As a true Unionist, he will be able to encourage my association members on the things that matter for us here at Westminster and elsewhere.

As I am sure everyone is aware, there are different rules regarding apprenticeships in the devolved nations, so I come here to give a Northern Ireland perspective, as I do all the time. There are two different systems. The Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland, but I want to sow into the debate the thoughts we have back home. The levy is paid into an apprenticeship service account, and funds in the account must be spent on apprenticeships, training and assessment. Since 2017, there has been a large fall in the number of apprenticeship starts. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) referred to another methodology for taking advantage of moneys that have not been used, and I support that. In fairness, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North gave an indication that he, too, would be appreciative of it.

At the end of the 2021-22 financial year, the total value of the levy funds in apprenticeship service accounts was just under £5 billion. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all receive a share of that funding through the Barnett consequentials. Some of the moneys go to us in Northern Ireland, but also to Scotland and Wales, so there is a spin-off, of which we can take advantage. Apprenticeship funding is crucial for society. I believe it is absolutely critical to put people on the path to work, especially young people who have no desire to go to university and who are insistent on learning a skill to better their future. I see the importance of apprenticeships to many young people who have taken up apprenticeship jobs. They ensure opportunity and are really important.

I will give a classic example that I often think of and refer to. I know of a mechanic in my constituency of Strangford who is now 25. He left school when he was 15, and was keen to do something with his hands. He started as an apprentice in a local Ford dealership on £3.67 per hour. My goodness! Apprenticeships are never highly paid. They certainly were not highly paid when he was 15. He has worked his way up the system through his apprenticeship, and qualified as a mechanic, and on the journey, he learned all the necessary skills to become a fully qualified technician for Royal Mail. What a really good example of what apprenticeships can do, and how they can change lives and give people opportunities!

Apprenticeships allow young people to learn high-level professional skills. Skills policy, including responsibility for apprenticeships, how they work, and how apprentices work their way up, is a fully devolved matter, so each Administration across the United Kingdom has developed an apprenticeship policy tailored to the needs of its skill priorities. Regionally, that is done through the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment. As I have stated many times, Northern Ireland has a large agricultural industry, which is especially evident in my constituency of Strangford. I live on a farm, and there are farm-related opportunities for apprenticeships. To give two examples, Dale Farm and Lakeland Dairies offer apprenticeships for young people.

In addition, City & Guilds offers level 2 and level 3 agriculture apprenticeships through NI Direct. That is a fantastic way to get people involved in the industry, especially in the rural community where I live, where there are not as many opportunities as there could be. Apprenticeships in the rural community are on offer, and our young people can and do take advantage of them, which is good news. I know that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has the same interest, because he lives in a rural community as well, so we understand the role for apprenticeships and how we can move forward.

[Tim Farron]

We did not plan this, but it is really good of the hon. Gentleman to let me intervene. He makes important points. I represent a community in which there are well over 1,000 farms. We have a real issue with succession of farmers, and bringing new people into the farming industry. Less than 60% of the food that we consume in the UK is grown in the country, which is deeply troubling. The answer surely must be to bring more young people into farming. Does he agree that the Minister should look carefully at how we can enhance agricultural and other farming apprenticeships, so that we can make it attractive and financially possible for young people to enter the industry and feed us all?

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a salient and important point that underlines the issue for us as representatives of predominantly agricultural constituencies. Our role in the rural community is to feed others, and we have the potential to feed even more of our nation, which will reduce the amount of food that we have to import. Hopefully, we can look towards a time when we can be almost self-sufficient; we will never be fully self-sufficient, because we cannot grow some of the stuff that we import, but his point, which I wholeheartedly support, is that we have opportunity. When the Minister sums up, perhaps he can give the two of us—and others in this Chamber—some encouragement on the way forward.

There is no doubt that apprenticeships work and are good for society. There is much pressure on young people to go to university and get a degree. I am not saying that they should not, but not every person is of a mind to do that. Not every person has the capabilities, the functioning or perhaps the focus to make that happen. I have three boys who are now young men, and my neighbours down the road, who are also farmers, had three boys around the same age, and they all went to school together. I knew early on that the oldest of those young boys was never going to get on at school and get all the qualifications that it gives. He only wanted to work on the farm. That is where he wanted to be, and where his love was. Those are the things that we need to focus on. Whenever the hon. Gentleman speaks highly of agriculture and how we can move forward, I endorse that, because I have examples of what he is talking about in my constituency.

When apprenticeship opportunities are successful and are proven to work in the United Kingdom, they deliver opportunities, and lifelong jobs and commitment. If apprenticeships are worse off for the levy, then I urge the Minister to look at other ways in which the moneys could be used. Despite this being a devolved issue, I believe that the Minister has an interest in the situation in Northern Ireland, and a sincere responsibility to ensure that it does not fall behind. I recognise, of course, that this is about Barnett consequentials, and the moneys that come from here to us.

Apprenticeships are about ensuring that underachieving females and males can succeed. It is great that today we can talk about apprenticeships giving opportunities, and jobs for life. In other words, they are about giving not just our children, but our children’s children, a future that we all endorse and would wish for—a future in a stronger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where apprenticeships matter and make a difference.