Union Learning Fund

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for securing the debate and for her contribution.

The sheer number of speakers in the debate says a lot. The Minister should be concerned not just about the number of Labour and Scottish National party Members who came; she should hear loud and clear that not a single Conservative MP was willing to come to the debate to speak up for the decision. The fact that the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) is not here to speak up for the decision should say more to the Minister than every single eloquent speech that we have heard from my hon. Friends and colleagues. For the 200,000 learners each year who will see barriers placed before their careers by this incredibly short-sighted move, the debate will provide reassurance that there are people in this place who are more interested in supporting them than in picking fights, settling scores and preventing that ladder of opportunity.

I will not have the opportunity to refer to every speech, but so many important points were made by colleagues, some of which I want to mention. As my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) said, the union learning fund has enjoyed cross-party support throughout its time, going right back to 1998. As other hon. Members have said, the programme has demonstrated the potential to enhance and transform the lives of workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South said that the programme reaches people whose statutory education has failed and who arrived in the workplace without functional literacy and numeracy. Those are the people the programme has supported.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) said, a Government who were truly committed to a skills-led recovery would recognise that Unionlearn is an example of building back better and of the very best of trade union and Government co-operation, helping workers to help themselves. Of course, we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, but whatever that will be, we know where the decision comes from. She might read the words, but the decision was made by the Secretary of State.

There is not much that I would say to commend the Secretary of State, but in fairness, he has been quite upfront and honest about that fact. There has been no attempt to hide behind the Treasury or an economic argument. This is a political decision by a politician who would rather settle scores with the trade unions than work with them constructively. In his own mind, he is the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher, preventing workers from accessing literacy and numeracy skills. This is his Orgreave; this is the moment that he came into politics for. The evidence that we have heard is about the real people who will be affected by this decision. He is not the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher; he is a mean-spirited Frank Spencer. That is who is making this decision.

The decision is so misplaced. It hits the workers, not the unions. Unionlearn is not a profit centre for trade unions. It will not hit the sustainability of the unions. In communities up and down the country, it will prevent people from accessing the skills that would enable them to better themselves. What idiocy!

All Governments will, on occasion, have arguments and fights with trade unions. That is the nature of being in government. But what a fight to pick! Why, if they want to fight the trade unions, do they fight to prevent them from helping people to better themselves? It is incredible to think that the premiership of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) might be looked back on as a more enlightened time than what we have now, but with regard to Unionlearn it was.

Let us remind ourselves what the Minister’s predecessor, Anne Milton, said a couple of years ago:

“The aim of the National Retraining Scheme is simple—to produce the best programme of learning and training for people in work and returning to work in the changing world. To do this the Government, the CBI and the TUC all have our parts to play.”

She continued:

“That’s where Unionlearn comes in and why we regard it as an external partner in the national retraining scheme.”

That is a sensible, Conservative approach to recognising that Unionlearn is about unions and Government working constructively together. That is what a sensible Secretary of State would say now. Even in the teeth of austerity, when it seemed there was nothing the Government were not willing to cut back on, George Osborne decided to continue funding Unionlearn. That was the approach they took then. He was a poor Chancellor, but he was a skilful politician. The Secretary of State we have now is no such thing.

No fig leaves can cover the motivation for this decision. The most recent independent evaluation of Unionlearn, to which colleagues have referred, was published by the University of Exeter this month. It said that the £12 million spent on Unionlearn has an overall benefit to employers and individuals of £1.4 billion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) said, every pound invested in the union learning fund in round 20 generated a total economic return of £12.87, benefiting workers and their employers almost equally.

The latest evaluation found that 80% of employees said they had developed skills that they could transfer to a new job. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) said, 19% of those who accessed the fund gained a promotion or increased responsibility after their learning. Some 11% gained a pay rise. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) spoke about work-based poverty and the number of people working two or three jobs who are still unable to pay their bills. The union learning fund was a solution to that, with people getting pay rises as a result of the extra skills that they gained.

Like most acts of vandalism, this decision will come at a cost. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) referred to the fact that the evaluation showed that for every pound the Government spend, they receive £3.60 back. This decision will literally cost the Government money. It is not about them having to find an alternative way to pay for it; they are losing money through this decision.

The Government have not even pretended to investigate the impact. Last month, Baroness Berridge admitted that neither the Secretary of State nor any ministerial colleagues had met employers, trade bodies, sector skills bodies, individual trade unions, further education organisations or trading providers in advance of this decision. If they had taken the time to consult, however, they would know that there is a huge coalition opposed to the decision.

Can the Minister recall a time when such a broad coalition of employers has come together to back a union-led initiative? There is a long list of companies already opposing this decision: the British Ceramic Confederation, Cogent Skills, Ingenuity, British Steel, the Food and Drink Federation, Catapult, Make UK, the Manufacturing Technologies Association, Tesco, LIBERTY Steel, the Workers’ Educational Association, Heathrow airport, Tata Steel, Arla Foods, Milk & More and Müller Milk & Ingredients. How many more organisations need to come out and say that this is a retrograde step?

The challenges of the pandemic demonstrate the urgent need for retraining and upskilling. In Unionlearn, there is the very model of lifelong learning, yet the Government are axing this programme, which supports the learning of over 200,000 workers at a cost of just £12 million a year, while the community learning budget, which is 20 times bigger than Unionlearn, reaches fewer than twice as many people. There could not be a better example of the Government’s not spending money wisely.

This decision is not about the money. The Department has just sent £80 million that was allocated to providing help to retrain back to the Treasury because it could not spend it. This is a Government who rip up the rules on procurement to load cash into the pockets of their friends and Tory party donors, but when it comes to a tiny investment to help workers who earn in a year the sort of money these Ministers will pay as a day rate to consultants, the message from the Government is, “Your career is not worth it.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said it is the opposite of a levelling-up approach. It says more about this Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) said, and more about this Secretary of State than any shiny new initiative. We can all see the truth: this is a decision that pits the Government against 200,000 low-paid workers, it will cost rather than save money, it is the opposite of levelling up, and it stinks. The truth is that the Minister could get to her feet now and confirm that she will cancel this divisive and regressive stupidity, and I hope that she will.

Further Education Funding

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As usual, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) has said, at a time like this, with so many people losing their jobs, further education and its ability to agilely shift to retraining people are particularly important. It is very concerning that we have seen real financial sustainability issues in FE, a topic that the Public Accounts Committee has raised a number of times. That sector has come into this crisis working from a challenging base, with its funding base for adults in 2020 still at 2013 levels.

As the Minister knows as a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, this sector has been on a difficult trajectory for seven years. She has been involved in some of those discussions, so I do not need to run through the figures with her: I am sure that as a former member of the Public Accounts Committee and with her business background, she is hot on the numbers, and the numbers matter here. That base funding causes a lot of the difficulty and the inability to be as agile as the sector can be, because of the way in which the sector is used to working with adults—of course, it works with young people as well, but I am mainly talking about adults today. Those adults have sometimes come from challenging or different educational backgrounds, and have not followed a traditional trajectory in training: level 2, level 3, and so on.

We on the Public Accounts Committee will be looking again at this topic; that inquiry is coming up, and we will increasingly be looking at sixth-form colleges as well, because that is obviously a concern. However, I particularly want to talk about FE today. There are particular issues with the covid pandemic, so I will talk about funding first, and then some of the practical issues.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We are here for a debate about funding for further education, which my hon. Friend is coming to, and many of us are concerned about the overall amount of funding. However, alongside that, we are seeing things such as the Government sending £330 million allocated for skills back to the Treasury because it has not been able to be spent under the apprenticeship levy. There are other examples, which I will come on to, where the issue is not just the overall amount being spent, but the fact that how it is being spent means that it ends up not being used.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I am going to touch on the apprenticeship levy. It was an interesting and bold policy initiative, but as he has rightly highlighted, it has its pitfalls and, indeed, is not always going to the right places. If I have time, I will touch on that as well, but I want to get the immediate funding issues around covid on the record first.

As the Minister will know, the last time that FE colleges were encouraged to come together to save costs—part of the challenge of living on a low funding basis—Hackney College became part of New City College, a consortium of colleges. It has been keen to keep recruiting 16 to 18-year-olds, because in the current climate it wants to make sure that it does not turn students away. It has managed to recruit 200 above its funded target, which is costing it £1.2 million a year: that is a cost to the college directly, money that it is having to take out of its own base costs if it is not funded, and I hope that the Minister will look at that issue. We should not be turning people away from study, and it is great that New City College is not turning people away, but obviously that money has to come from somewhere, so another part of the system is losing out.

The funding tolerance for adults is also a very interesting point. In London—this is a happy circumstance for my constituency—if the colleges meet 90% of their adult rate, meaning that they keep those students in place, they get 100% of the funding. Nationally, the figure is 97%. It is difficult enough to keep in place adults from a different education trajectory who are perhaps juggling families and sometimes jobs as well as study; it is harder than if people are in compulsory education. Add to that the complexities of covid: ill health, and people perhaps dropping out after having to self-isolate because they had covid or have long covid. They can enrol and lose out. That means the figure can very quickly drop below 97%.

Nationally, the Minister needs to look at the tolerance level. As she knows, I am not for wasted money or deadweight money; it is certainly not something I would advocate. There is a very high threshold at the best of times but, with covid, it is particularly challenging. A bit more tolerance would enable colleges to plan and focus. As agile and clever as they are, I am sure they could find ways to fill gaps in those places. I will come to explain how they can be really agile by providing short courses for people.

The costs of covid compliance have to be mentioned, because it is expensive. Fewer people are in the building, and there is less activity in some ways. New City College spent £200,000 from its reserves to support students in the first lockdown. As the Minister knows, many colleges up and down the country have run out of money due to their challenging financial circumstances. There will be a crisis point if those colleges are not supported to survive.

We do not ever want to see a college go bust. Colleges are the main education providers in small towns, but they might be hampered by previous loans from Government, some of which we know have been converted to grants. Even then, however, such colleges are in great difficulties financially. If they go bust, where will the adults in that area go? The Government have an agenda of levelling up areas of the country that have traditionally not recovered from some of the post-industrial job losses in previous decades. If they lose their FE colleges, where will the training come from for the people who are now losing jobs in some of the sectors that are particularly suffering because of covid?

I want to touch on capital funding. It is good that the Government have said they will match-fund capital expenditure to ensure that colleges can patch themselves up, but the constraint of having to spend the funding in the current financial year is challenging. We are already in November. Although the announcement on funding was made a while ago, some of the projects that could be delivered are a bit longer range or are very disruptive to the working of a college. Add in the covid measures and it becomes even more challenging. We all know that a lot of work goes on in schools and colleges during the long summer recess or the breaks, but the summer recess comes after the end of the financial year. Although I recognise that it is difficult in some ways, it is not beyond the wit of Government to look at extending the deadline and perhaps making it a two-year capital funding programme, so that colleges can plan.

The Minister knows as well as I do that if things are done in a rush because the money has to be spent by a certain point, they are not necessarily done well, or the right things are not necessarily done. We should allow colleges to spend that capital money as effectively as possible. It could be spent on better covid measures to enable people to work more easily in those circumstances, or on enhancing facilities for the sort of job creation that we will need and that they will need to train for. I will touch on that in a moment.

It would be good if we could have more flexibility. An example of why this is needed comes from Hackney College, where there is an atrium with a leaking roof. It is a £500,000 job. The matched funding is very welcome, but it is a big job and will really disrupt things. If that has to be done before the end of the financial year, it will be challenging—if it even gets done.

I will move on to how we train people for the jobs that will still exist after covid, and for the ones that will emerge. I hope the Minister will tell us what shared intelligence there is of the local and regional skills that will be needed. Having a strong London authority means that there is some understanding of the jobs that are available in London but, given the nature of their work, a lot of London workers now do not have to live in London. There will be an interesting and challenging job for everybody in working out where people will be and where the jobs will be available. If somebody is working in care or certain other jobs, they clearly have to be physically present, but that is not the case for lots of jobs.

There really needs to be some analysis. I hope the Minister can shed some light on what analysis is being carried out not just in her Department, but across Government, about what jobs and skills might be needed. It might seem early to start thinking about that, but it is never too early to start planning. Things might shift and they might change, but if we do not start thinking about it now, there will be far more people without jobs in the right places. Imagine retraining for a job that does not exist in a year’s time because we have not got it right. We need to be thinking about that and sharing intelligence as much as we can. I am not saying the Government have all the answers, but they have a very strong role in co-ordinating this effort.

We need to move quickly. Existing mechanisms for funding new courses are very slow. Let us consider some of the jobs for which need might be rising. With Brexit looming, the health and social care sectors face a real struggle. I know from looking at the issue with the Public Accounts Committee that getting people to work in social care in the Minister’s own constituency is very challenging because of the costs. If the Government are serious about levelling up and investing in infrastructure projects, construction will be vital. Digital enablement of all sorts of careers will also be important. I happily represent Hackney South and Shoreditch, where understanding how to work digitally and adapting quickly has been a hallmark of people’s success in surviving and coming through the pandemic so far, so it is definitely something in which we need to train people.

Those examples are the reason for my hunch about what might be necessary. Putting people on six-month intensive courses—my local college reckons that that could be done for between £3,000 and £3,500 per person— could quickly get them out of unemployment, off benefits and into work. Alternatively, as they may still be on furlough with their job winding down, facing redundancy even if their sector survives, it might be better to train them before they have to claim support from the state.

There is a constraint, however, about which I hope the Minister will give us some reassurance, even though it is not her remit alone. Those six-month intensive courses, for which I just gave the costs, would entail only 15 hours per adult per week, because under the current rules the college cannot start planning a longer course. If anyone studies for 16 hours or more, they are no longer eligible for benefits. That trap will be devastating as we come out of covid. People will be trapped on benefits because they have lost their jobs, but they will not be able to train for other jobs because they would no longer be able to claim benefits. We would find ourselves in a Kafkaesque circle of doom.

I hope the Minister will try seriously to tackle that. If that time threshold were raised, colleges could be so much quicker and more efficient in targeting and supporting adults back into work. Funding for that sort of short-term, swift reskilling would usually come from the approved national skills fund, which is, again, something over which the Minister can have some very direct influence, I hope.

That fund is normally released in the summer. We are now in November and already in our second lockdown, meaning that people will lose their jobs. The Minister knows that one of my bugbears about all Governments is what I call cost shunting, which is something that the Public Accounts Committee highlights all the time. If we do not get that money to train people now, many of them will start claiming benefits and there will be all sorts of ramifications for their lives, homes, livelihoods and so on. That will cost them, the state and the taxpayer a lot more in the long run.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough mentioned the apprenticeship levy. The Public Accounts Committee has looked at this and we were concerned that, in order to get the money out of the door, it is quite easy for companies to put money into MAs and other higher-level apprenticeship programmes. I think we would all acknowledge that the levy was really intended to train people in much lower-level careers, so that they could either reach higher levels or change career.

I do not have all the answers, but the Government need to look at how the levy works. As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), has said, it is criminal for that money to be levied, only to then go back into Treasury coffers. I am sure that we would all back the Minister if she took on the Treasury and demanded that that money be syphoned back into education. We might find a harmonious point of cross-party agreement in these challenging times. I launch that campaign here and now, and tempt the Minister to agree with it when she responds.

I am sure that the Minister has our support to act fast. We need safeguards in place, but I have no desire to see more of my constituents lose everything just because we have a bureaucratic deadline of next summer rather than November and the 16-hour rule that prevents those who are studying from claiming benefits. We need to unjam the system so that people who want to work and retrain are encouraged to do so with every tool in the box. Colleges stand ready and waiting. I pay tribute to East London Advanced Technology Training, which trains people in my constituency but is already losing students because of the loan scheme.

Will the Minister also look at the loan scheme for level 3? Many people will not take on the debt now, but they need support to ensure that they are retrained and can work and support themselves. My constituency is poor, but there is no poverty of ambition. I now have the new poor: people who had good jobs and want to work again. They just need a little leg up. They do not want a handout—they want a hand up. I hope that the Minister has heard me and will answer my questions.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) for securing this timely debate and for the passion and determination with which she continues to speak up for the further education sector. It is hugely welcome that for the second time in two weeks we are here to debate the sector. I know how important it is to many Members.

Our colleges are incredibly important. They are at the heart of all our communities. They are an education and skills hub relied on by employers and learners. They are crucial providers of skills and play an incredibly important role in bringing employers and learners together. They are the institutes of second chance for many people who have had their lives turned around by the further education sector—even in my own family. My son went to an FE college and subsequently went to university, which would not have been predicted when he left school. I know that his experience is commonplace.

People who go to our colleges can study vocational or academic subjects, and foundation and life skills. Colleges are incredibly important for adult education. People who go to colleges are more likely to be younger, and more likely to be black or from an ethnic minority, than the average population. Colleges are an incredibly important cog in a functioning education system. I think that the passion for that has come across today.

I was particularly struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough said about the extent to which the skills and productivity crisis that we face existed prior to coronavirus. It has been much exacerbated by the virus, but many of the issues existed long before, and it is important for us to focus on that. As we think about the value of adult education, and learning at all stages of our lives, I am sure I am not the only one who has today learned, in far more detail than they knew it before, the geography of Wisconsin and what the obscure states around America are all about. It just shows that every day is a school day.

It is important to make the point that we already had a skills and productivity crisis before coronavirus. We already had an apprenticeship levy where there was a huge reduction in apprenticeships at small and medium-sized enterprises and in the number of 16 to 19-year-olds obtaining access to one of them. We already had an underfunded further education college sector. We already had a huge flight of experienced college lecturers, after years of real-terms pay cuts. They left the profession and left colleges less able to provide the support that is needed. We already had a Government who were making further education the enemy of higher education, rather than seeing them as complementary providers whose success depends, in part, on each other.

Coronavirus has only exacerbated those challenges, with a huge reduction in apprenticeship starts. The colleges that focused most on apprenticeships and commercial partnerships are the very ones with the biggest financial challenge. Many apprentices’ college courses were suspended, and they were either furloughed or made redundant, and a generation of workers of all ages who need retraining find that the careers and adult education offers that would help them right now have been obliterated.

On finances, the Ney report exposed the fact that the Government’s destruction of the civil service and its capacity means that the Department for Education has been ill equipped to work with colleges that hit financial trouble. On capital funding, which other Members have referred to, the Minister’s written response to my recent question exposed the unprecedented capital funding cuts we have seen over the last 10 years. This debate is timely, Mr Hosie.

In the last decade the further education sector has seen its funding slashed by a third, but adult education, which is so crucial at this time, has taken an even bigger hit, with a 50% reduction. By the end of this year, an estimated 1 million young people will be neither in employment nor education and training, and will be facing the toughest jobs market in a generation. Even when faced with the urgent need to act this spring, Ministers ignored calls from the Association of Colleges to have that education and training offer in place for September, at the start of this academic year.

On capital funding, £2.61 billion was invested in further education capital expenditure in the final five years of the previous Labour Government. In the five years that followed, the Government reduced that spending in actual terms by a shocking 64%. When we hear the Government now proudly boasting about a £200 million increase in capital funding, we need to place that in the context of the cuts we have already had. Even with the additional money that has been spent, Government are spending less now than they were 10 years ago—purely in cash terms, not even taking into account inflation.

When colleges urgently need funds to make structural changes to cope with the demands of coronavirus, it is staggering inaction on the Government’s part to say that there will be a plan coming along in April. The Association of Colleges has exposed that the average college has spent between £200,000 and £300,000 on covid-related improvements to keep their college safe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) reflected.

A powerful point was made by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who brought her experience to bear, as well as her passion for the sector. In her contribution she talked about the frustration that we all feel when money that has been allocated by the Treasury and is finally in the skills sector is then subject to systems that mean we cannot use that money, and it is sent back to the Government. It is infuriating.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough spoke powerfully about the digital divide. In this crisis, we have seen the importance of young people being able to access broadband and devices. The case she made about the lack of laptops was powerful.

On the subject of money being sent back, in a debate a couple of weeks ago I asked the Minister about the “Get Help to Retrain” scheme, which was being wound up after its pilot. She said that it had not been scrapped, but was being incorporated into the national retraining scheme. FE Week recently published evidence that the leftover cash from the £100 million, earmarked for the retraining scheme, would not be added to the new skills fund and Ministers have confirmed that the money will be sent back to the Treasury. Once again, we have a situation where money has been allocated and it ends up not being spent on our young people, when it should be. That is becoming something of a pattern.

The tweaking of the apprenticeship levy to enable large employers to pass levy funds down to companies in their supply chains is welcomed. The hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) talked about the importance of his college in Devon. He made a powerful case for the importance of the FE sector, focused on local needs, in small towns and rural communities.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke about adult education, as I have, and she referred to the decision to scrap the union learning fund. I see that decision as entirely vindictive. The fund is a tiny proportion of the money being spent on skills, and it is being scrapped at a time when we know that the Government cannot even spend the money that they have. The decision does not seem to be based on any evidence that shows that the programme does not work—it does work—but on the Secretary of State’s antipathy towards the trade union sector.

In a wide-ranging speech, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) once again demonstrated what a great advocate she is for her local college, and spoke about the state of the college estate. The FE colleges that have been hit hardest by the pandemic are those that took the Government’s advice, developed training in association with large employers locally, focused on apprenticeships and built up commercial partnerships. It is a tragedy that those are the ones most badly affected.

As the Secretary of State focuses his aims in the White Paper on creating a German-style education system, it is important that the Government should have cognisance of the difference between the kind of economy we have and that of Germany. I would love to see more of a skills-based approach, but it will not stand in isolation from a proper industrial strategy.

It is clear that Ministers’ rhetoric about FE funding is a long way from the reality of the policies we have seen over the last decade. This Government are constantly keen to distance themselves from the last 10 years of their own record. However, whether they have really made a damascene conversion to FE remains very much to be seen.

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[Gillian Keegan]

I was going to come to that, but I will address the hon. Lady’s question. Effectively, we have increased a lot of the basic entitlements—obviously with English and maths, and with the digital entitlement. We are trying to streamline the delivery partners, including to the devolved areas, to ensure that it is simpler for people to get easy and broader access. That was the decision, and I have communicated that personally to the general secretary of the TUC.

I recognise the challenges that providers face as a result of covid-19. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) mentioned the response to covid and the world-leading scientists working on vaccines, and so on. However, I also want to mention—as he has given me the opportunity—the many apprentices working on our response to covid, whether they are lab technicians, science and engineering apprentices, or those in nursing, health, social care, everything digital, and many, many more areas. As he also mentioned fishing, I should also tell him that a level 2 fisher apprenticeship is under development, and I am sure there will be many more to come as we develop the sector.

I thank the FE sector for its continued hard work to make sure our learners can continue to access high-quality education and training, which includes the move to remote learning. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who I always seek to remain harmonious with, mentioned that. We have introduced a lot of flexibilities to shift towards online and blended learning and to increase the flex vis-à-vis attendance. Many of the colleges have appreciated the flexibilities that we have introduced, and we have done that all the way along.

In June, I had the pleasure of meeting students and leaders from Barnsley College, who, from the first day of lockdown, successfully moved 100% of their curriculum online. We have heard from many colleges about how covid-19 forced a behavioural and cultural change towards a more flexible approach of blended learning, which might otherwise have taken years. I have been so impressed by the sector. In fact, I know that it has even surprised itself, given how well the whole sector has moved to absolutely excellent interactive online learning.

We are helping to ensure that all young people and adults can access the skills and training they need to get on in life, despite all the economic and other challenges posed by the pandemic. That has included giving people access to digital devices and dongles, which goes to the point that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough made. Data is vital. We know that, which is why part of what we have broadened access to, for those who need them, includes data, PCs and dongles. We have enabled the discretionary bursary fund to be used for that and have also put in place a very simple business case to enable providers to ask for an uplift if it runs out, because it is being used for different things, and 38 have benefited from that uplift.

Of course, we recognise the impact of lockdown. As part of the £350 million national tutoring programme, we have made available a one-off ring-fenced grant of up to £96 million. Those are important additional funds to help students who, in some cases, may have missed the last six months or the last year of their GCSEs, as the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) referred to. We know this is always a challenge for colleges, so we have specifically put that funding in place for them to provide small-group tutoring activity, to enable our most disadvantaged students to catch up.

There have been some additional costs, and we have looked at making sure we provide financial support, as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch mentioned. The financial health of colleges is absolutely vital and key, so we have put that support in place, and we have a team of people who have been there to support colleges. As those colleges’ funding has changed—their commercial income and sometimes their apprenticeship income—that has impacted their overall income, so that support is in place, as is emergency funding. To date, five colleges have requested that emergency funding and have received it, but we are ready to help others, and keep very close to the sector to make sure that no colleges close. Clearly, we need to keep learners in focus throughout this period.

[Mr Perkins]

The Minister has previously spoken about the five colleges that have had direct financial support, and 40 colleges she has identified that might need that support. Can she update us a bit more on what progress is being made, and how many more she thinks are likely to need further support?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am very happy to, because I asked that question just as I was leaving to come here, and the number of requests for emergency funding has not changed: it is still just those five colleges. However, things clearly will change, and we are now going through other changes as well. Another month’s lockdown could have impacts on other incomes, apprenticeships and so on, so we keep this issue constantly under review, and keep a team in place to help people and make sure we are aware of any stresses and strains on the system.

Colleges and Skills: Covid-19

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing the debate. He is a powerful advocate for our colleges as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for further education and lifelong learning. It is clear that all contributors recognise the crucial role our colleges play. Many took the opportunity to specifically thank and acknowledge the work of their local colleges, and I have no doubt that all those contributions about the role of our colleges were genuinely felt.

As I know from my regular visits to Chesterfield College, our colleges are the providers of second chances. They are the home of about 30% of all apprenticeship learning and the focal point for our skills strategy. For so many, they are the road between school failure and academic and career success, and they have changed the life chances of people in my family. They are fundamental to our country having the skills it needs to cope with the twin threats to our economy of covid-19 and Brexit.

We have heard during this debate a familiar refrain: that our colleges have been ignored too long by successive Governments, and that they must finally be taken seriously. However, I somewhat take issue with that lazy characterisation, and with the suggestion that recent announcements by this Government constitute some kind of golden age of FE. In welcoming the campaigning zeal of the hon. Member for Waveney I also want to ensure that the record of this Government is properly put under the spotlight, because it is not a case of “it was ever thus”.

As was revealed by my recent written question, £2.61 billion was invested in further education capital expenditure in the final five years of the previous Labour Government. In the following five years, the Government reduced that spending in actual terms by a shocking 64%. In all, colleges have endured a decade of cuts amounting to a third of their budget, while attempting to continue to be at the forefront of equipping young people and adults in every area of the country with the skills they need to succeed. What is more, we have seen adult education funding slashed by 50% in real terms and appalling failure on careers guidance, and the Government announcement just this week that they were scrapping their “Get Help to Retrain” initiative—the centrepiece of the national retraining scheme—less than three years after it was announced should give us all pause for thought.

As we enter this period in which we are asked to believe that the Government have finally accepted the need for a skills-based economy, we do so in the shadow of the vindictive and destructive announcement that they are scrapping funding for the Unionlearn programme that their own assessment was so complimentary about. That is perhaps more revealing than 1,000 press releases. At the same time, we know that, just a few months ago, the Government sent £300 million of apprenticeship levy funds back to the Treasury. There is far more generous funding for the commitment-free kickstart programme than for apprenticeships, and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) was absolutely right to say that SMEs are shut out of our apprenticeships far too often. The Association of Colleges has stated that colleges face a shortfall of £2 billion this academic year.

There is so much more to say about our further education sector, but unfortunately there is not the time in which to do it, so I will close with this: we need a Government that recognise that colleges are a fundamental part of our skills and economic ecosystem and that do not pit them against universities or even see them as opponents of the independent provider sector, but that see them working collaboratively across the piece. We need a Government that introduce policy based on evidence and then give policies a chance to work. We need a Government that are honest about the fact that the scale of funding cuts means that the current investment is a tiny step back up the mountain.

We need a properly resourced Department for Education that sees FE colleges working collaboratively with employers, universities, trade unions and Government schemes, and we need a Government that recognise that not all people can get careers advice from their father’s friends at the golf club. We need a skills system that works around real people’s lives and supports them to retrain without their families going hungry while they are doing so. Colleges are capable of playing the role we need them to, but not unless the Government show the humility and resolve to recognise where those colleges are starting from and what is required to help them back to the place they should be in: at the heart of a skills system relied on by employers, valued by learners and every bit as good as the very best in the world.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have 10 minutes, in order to give the mover a brief opportunity to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gillian Keegan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I actually had a meeting about this long-standing problem just before I came here, because careers is a key pillar of our FE and skills White Paper to ensure that everyone understands the routes. The Careers & Enterprise Company has done a lot of work to ensure that young people get a broad range of opportunities to talk to businesses, look at career opportunities and visit colleges and universities, but not everyone gets all of the information they need to make an informed decision.

Hon. Members will all be aware of the skills recovery package and the Chancellor’s plan for jobs. There is a lot of investment in apprenticeships, traineeships and classroom-based study. We are also extending the National Careers Service and putting in an extra £32 million to provide additional careers support.

FE providers have always been key to delivering adult education as well. Therefore, as we develop our plans for reskilling adults, that will include an extra £2.5 billion over the course of the Parliament for the national skills fund. Contrary to what was said by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), the national retraining scheme has not been scrapped; it will be built on and become part of the much bigger national skills fund. The national retraining scheme had £100 million; it will be £2.5 billion for the national skills fund.

[Mr Perkins]

Will the Minister confirm whether the “Get Help to Retrain” scheme has been scrapped?

[Gillian Keegan]

The “Get Help to Retrain” scheme was a pilot website in six areas, and all the learnings from those pilots will be brought into the new national skills fund. It will be called something else, but the learnings will not be lost. Digital bootcamps are also a new addition, which I am sure many hon. Members will welcome.

These policies are all part of a wider rebalancing between HE and FE, making FE a more attractive choice. However, we are not leaving out the basics. We mentioned capital programme funding, much of which in the past went via the local enterprise partnerships, and it was not always ring-fenced, which led to shortages in some areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney raised some interesting ideas including business centres and focused areas of investment. There will be much discussion between colleges, the Association of Colleges, business groups and the Government to address those issues. We are listening to ideas about how to strengthen the sector, and we will publish a White Paper in the near future.

There has never been a more important time for this. We are facing significant skills shortages in key sectors, including construction and engineering, as mentioned by my hon. Friend, but there are many others. Until recently, we also had low levels of unemployment. However, the prospect of dire levels of unemployment means that now is the time to ensure that we invest in our FE sector and build back better as a nation.

Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Bill

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 14th October 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Cummins, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham on promoting this private Member’s Bill.

The flaws in the way young people are safeguarded in education and the disparities in the system need to be addressed and corrected. It is right and absolutely necessary that apprenticeships training providers meet the minimum standards that already exist for schools, further education colleges and sixth form colleges. Every child and young person needs to be protected, and the Bill helps to do just that.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham for introducing the Bill, which is an important piece of legislation. We all feel strongly about the importance of apprenticeships and skills, and we recognise that 16 to 19-year-olds are at a delicate stage in their lives. Anyone who has been the parent of a child of 16 to 19 knows—most Members here are too young—that it is quite a challenge. [Laughter.] Joking aside, they are at a vulnerable point in their lives, moving between childhood and adulthood. Also, in many areas, they are moving from the school education space to the workspace, and it is important to have clarity on what their rights are in relation to safeguarding.

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

I want to place on the record my congratulations to the hon. Member for City of Durham on securing this important piece of legislation. Having worked in the sector with secondary school kids and as a head of year in pastoral care, and regularly worrying in some cases about what they were going on to, I want to make sure that Conservative Members add our congratulations to the hon. Lady on this important Bill. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way.

[Mr Perkins]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman took the opportunity to say that. Having read the Hansard record of the first debate, I know how many people spoke in it and that the intentions behind the Bill were widely supported across the House.

When young people are in the space that encompasses both their education and their employment, it is important that there is clarity about what the responsibilities are. In the area of T-levels—an educational environment, but with very much a work focus—it is important that everyone understands and that independent learning providers realise that the expectations of them are exactly the same as they are for further education providers.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I think this is a wonderful Bill. For those of us who have been touched by and blessed with close family members who are on the autistic spectrum, the underlying challenges and social issues that young people face when they go through the school system are still there at 16 to 19. We have to safeguard the interests of children who are special and unique, but who have challenges in their lives. Training has to be adapted, whether with regard to a T-level or a more academic subject. Whatever training is provided, we need to ensure we have a system that safeguards those unique qualities to make sure that everybody can succeed. That is why I think this Bill is so worthwhile, and from the bottom of my heart I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Durham.

[Mr Perkins]

I could not agree more. It is important that children and young people with autism and the particular vulnerabilities that they face are not left out of our discussions. It is absolutely right that they need to be safeguarded. That is one reason that there is such support for the Bill.

While this is a technical change, it is of real importance, because specifying and putting front and centre that safeguarding duty is absolutely crucial. We all know that ignorance of the law is not a defence in law, but making sure that fewer employers are ignorant is one of our responsibilities in this place. I think this Bill will achieve that. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham on introducing the Bill and I am glad that there seems to be such widespread support for it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your first chairmanship, Ms Cummins, and I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the hon. Member for City of Durham on introducing the Bill and progressing it to this stage. I am pleased to work with her on this important issue, and in a collaborative, cross-party way, because, as she rightly points out, we are often at our best in this House when doing so. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions.

It was clear on Second Reading that the Bill had cross-party support, and I am pleased that the same is the case at this stage. I feel confident in recommending the Bill’s passage to its remaining stages and I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chesterfield, for his comments. We take seriously our duty to protect young people at each critical stage of their development.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that, as a former apprentice, this is very much at the forefront of my focus. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made it clear that further education is now more important than ever. That is part of the reason we are introducing once-in-a-generation reforms of the FE system through our skills White Paper, underpinning the progress we are already making with T-levels, which is backed by £500 million of funding per year, investing £1.5 billion in the transformation of the FE college estate, investing £2.5 billion through the national skills fund and introducing a new entitlement for adults without qualifications at level 3.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister is right to say that apprenticeships are more important than ever, but for all the rhetoric, the way that the Government introduced the apprenticeship levy saw level 2 and level 3 apprenticeship numbers falling to their lowest level for a decade before coronavirus. Since then, we have seen generous incentives in the new kickstart scheme and much less generous incentives for apprenticeships. For all that the Minister says, why do this Government consistently introduce policies that have the effect of reducing the numbers doing level 2 and 3 apprenticeships?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Gentleman refers, I think, to the switch from frameworks to standards, which did have an impact on some of the numbers, but it was most important that we focused on the quality of apprenticeships. There were a number of apprenticeships early on, when we introduced the reform of the system, that were not of the desired quality. Young people put their trust in us, in the apprenticeship provider and in the employer, and it is most important that they get very high-quality apprenticeships; that is our focus.

Draft Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) order 2020

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 General Committees

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Thank you very much indeed, Ms Bardell, for calling me to speak; it is a great pleasure to serve under your fledgling chairship. I also congratulate my counterpart, the Minister, on her virgin voyage, and I thank her for setting out the order, as published.

I do not intend to detain the Committee for too long. I am pleased to outline our support for the order, as we have supported it for many years previously. As many hon. Members may remember, when my hon. Friend Gordon Marsden—the previous Member for Blackpool, South—gave his approval to then order in 2017, he said that the ECITB and its associated board, the Construction Industry Training Board

‘have been an excellent example over more than 50 years of bodies in the industry coming together voluntarily to work with Government to make progress.’

—[Official Report, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 21 March 2017; c. 6.]

I share that assessment.

As Members will be aware, industry boards such as the ECITB were set up in the first place to encourage young people into the industry and to address skills shortages. Given the current economic challenges, which the Minister has just laid out, those needs are greater than ever.

Industry has changed significantly since the initial creation of industry boards back in 1964. Today, engineering construction is often made up of short-term and project work. For that reason in particular, investment in upskilling and retraining is especially vital for both the industry and its workforce. As the Minister said, pre-covid 190,000 people were dependent on engineering construction. The EICTB’s three-year plan outlined that it was consulting on a tier one provider model, including exploring course in a box product and online training courses, and funding a pilot programme for providers to develop and evaluate virtual learning and training solutions. In the light of covid, it would be helpful to know the extent to which those plans have been accelerated since the report was produced.

Since the previous order in 2017, the ECITB’s grants consultation summary report sets out that in 2016-17 30% of the grant expenditure went to management and professional training, 18% went to apprenticeships and 15% to technical training. The consultation and the truly overwhelming support within the industry for a levy on itself were a recognition that the levy was an investment not only in the staff of particular companies but in the entire industry’s future pipeline of workers. That is a really positive sign and a really positive development.

I also welcome the £4.5 million scheme announced in June by the ECITB to support the retention and development of key skills in the industry, in particular its new scholarships to support trainees embarking on an engineering construction career. I am interested to know whether the Minister feels that that scheme is enough currently, whether she feels confident that all of that money will be spent, and whether she thinks there will be a need for further investment to encourage more apprenticeships and training schemes for young people in the light of the huge drop-off in apprenticeships that we have seen in recent months.

In its recent three-year plan, the ECITB set out its commitment to a graduate programme, which is very welcome. However, it would be useful to know how the most disadvantaged young people will be encouraged into the industry, so I have a number of other questions that I hope the Minister can respond to.

Have the relevant devolved Administrations been consulted about this order? The Minister mentioned the hon. Member for Midlothian—I would be interested in any communications with the devolved Administrations and whether any specific issues have been raised about those markets. Have the plans and the proposals changed or been updated at all following the advent of covid, and has there been any assessment of whether they need to be?

I was very pleased to read that £500,000 will be made available from the grant scheme for diversity and inclusion training for managers, and interventions to support under-represented groups. What key performance indicators will monitor the impact of those programmes to encourage women, black, Asian and minority ethnic and disadvantaged or under-represented groups into the industry?

Given the impact of covid on employers, has consideration been given to whether there should be the option of a staggered levy, paid over the course of the year rather than in one instalment and with one month to pay? How will the Department for Education levy be used to support the training and development of staff working for smaller firms as well as of those working for larger ones? The Minister will be aware that, although only 18% of the levy in 2016-17 went towards apprenticeships, 54% of respondents to the survey believed that apprenticeships were the most valuable component of the levy expenditure, so does she have any plans to ensure that more of the levy is spent on apprenticeships?

I welcome the commitment from the ECITB in its three-year plan to equip the industry with skills to ensure that relevant sectors are able to deliver the net zero carbon economy by 2050. Does the Minister believe that we are on target? Should we be being more ambitious? In the light of covid, does she have any reservations about our capacity to achieve that? Is there an argument for greater accountability of the ECITB going forward? How does the DFE monitor and evaluate its aims and objectives, and to what extent does she feel that it is a successful model?

We welcome this fine example of a trade body being willing to invest in the skills of the future. Its recognition of their value is far-sighted and reflects well on the industry and its members, particularly given the financial pressures that have been brought to bear on the sector. Although I await with interest the Minister’s responses to my questions, I also look forward to supporting this very worthy initiative.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Let me assure the hon. Lady that we absolutely have FE colleges at the very heart and centre. We are planning a big reform of the sector, and as somebody who went to FE college myself from the age of 16, I am absolutely passionate about this area. The colleges have done an amazing job in responding to covid-19 to support students throughout coronavirus. We continue to pay the grant funding and monthly payments for 2019-20, and will do so for 2020-21. We have also provided catch-up funding of £96 million for small group tutoring for those disadvantaged students who need it. On top of that, we have allocated £200 million to enable FE colleges to improve their buildings. We have a team of officials right now working with every college that needs that support. We are working with 40, and so far only five have needed financial assistance, but we will keep this under review.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Government’s own commissioner for further education has warned that as many as 40 colleges are currently at risk of running out of cash, and despite the measures that the Minister has just spoken of, the Association of Colleges is warning of a £2 billion cash shortfall. We also know from the May report that the Government have inadequate mechanisms for identifying colleges in crisis, so the truth is that all those measures that the Minister speaks about simply are not enough. We need far greater action if we are going to see our colleges and their pupils and staff not being let down and left in financial crisis this autumn.

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Just so we are clear, we have provided grant funding to the FE sector, with more than £3 billion for a full year, and it gratefully received that. We have also announced an increase of funding of £400 million for 2020-21, an increase of 7% in overall funding. As he rightly said—and I said in answer to the earlier question—we are working with 40 colleges to structure their finances and helping them to get the advice and support they need. If they need emergency funding, as has been available, it will be available to them as well. We have a team of people working on this all the time, and the colleges accept that we are putting our arms around them to ensure that they get through this period.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

It is our ambition that East Coast College students and all college students will have the opportunity to make up for lost education. Remote learning has been working really well, but we will provide more details soon on how 16-to-19 providers can further support students. Funding allocations for 2020-21 have been guaranteed, and payments will be made in line with the national profile.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I do not know why that answer could not have been given to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who asked a very similar question but got no sort of answer. The Government must realise that leaving students who have missed level 4 in maths and English out of the catch-up funding is abandoning them at the very time they need such help the most. How can the Government justify leaving them out of that announcement given that a plan for schools was in place last week?

Further Education Funding

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my fellow west country MP, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for bringing forward this timely debate.

City College Plymouth has been on something of a rollercoaster ride in recent years. The college went into financial crisis last autumn, with a series of changes in principal. The current interim principal, Penny Wycherley, has been outstanding in steadying the ship and getting ready for her successor to start this year, but we need to acknowledge that the college is in financial crisis, and that is for a number of reasons.

First, the cuts to the FE budget have reduced the overall amount of money that the college has to spend. Changes in the way that funding is allocated have disproportionately hurt many colleges in the far south-west. The college has taken on huge financial capital liabilities in building the rather brilliant new STEM hub in Plymouth, which is delivering not only for City College, but for the wider city and the priorities of the local enterprise partnership. That has contributed to an exceptionally high level of recruitment of learners aged 16 to 19, meeting the local skills gap.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about capital expenditure. The previous Labour Government had a Building Colleges for the Future programme, which was cancelled in austerity times. Now, many college estates simply cannot keep pace, including in Chesterfield.

[Luke Pollard]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The lack of funding has meant that City College Plymouth has been unable to keep up with many of the repairs on its old building, leading to leaking roofs. It has not been able to replace technology with what it needs and has moved to leasing technology. It now faces financial barriers in moving off leasing to get the latest technology it needs.

Funding has also had a huge impact on college staff, who have not been given a cost of living pay rise or any other pay rise this year. That is not because they are not brilliant—they are exceptional—but because there is simply no money in the coffers for the college to do that. In an economy where the skills FE college staff have are in high demand, that means we are losing talent and skills. In particular, the engineering staff can earn salaries of £10,000 more simply by leaving the college and the jobs they love, and that is not right.

We need colleges like City College Plymouth to be motoring. It is a forward-thinking college. It has just launched its fantastic marine autonomy course, which will equip our young people with the skills they need to work in Plymouth’s world-class marine autonomy sector. Importantly, it will retrain people who work on the more heavy engineering side of the marine industries in the updated skills they need to succeed in a much more integrated digital marine environment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

We want UTCs to join suitable MATs wherever possible, as it is beneficial to both of them. It allows UTCs and MATs to offer a broad base of education, which can only be in everyone’s interests.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister’s rhetoric bears no relation to what we are seeing in our schools, where vocational education opportunities are shrinking all the time, and the Government’s sense of direction seems to be narrowing our young people’s curriculum. When will the statements that the Minister makes at the Dispatch Box start to have even the slightest relevance to what people are experiencing on the ground?

[Anne Milton]

I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman was last week, but it was National Apprenticeship Week. The opportunities that are available from the age of 16 in apprenticeships are extraordinary, and the Government are putting substantial investment into T-levels. For the first time, I have seen technical and vocational education get some real traction both inside and outside schools.