School Openings: January 2022
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
Absolutely. I am very happy to confirm that schools have and will have the testing capacity that they need.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It was fantastic to be out last week in primary schools in Ipswich handing out certificates for Christmas card entries. The artistic future of Ipswich is looking very bright indeed.
When I visit schools in Ipswich, learning loss is often a concern but not the main concern, which is the impact of lack of socialisation and the mental health implications. Will the Minister confirm that if there is a big struggle with teaching unions that do not put enough value on children’s education, he will stand up not just for learning, but for the mental health and social development of all our young people?
Alex Burghart
Absolutely. We have been very keen to make sure that we invest in the mental health of children and young people, following what has been an extremely difficult 18 months. I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in praising the primary school children of Ipswich and their artistic prowess.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)
Tom Hunt ExcerptsTuesday 7th December 2021
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 View all Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 7 December 2021 - (7 Dec 2021)
Mr Perkins
I rise to oppose Government amendment 23, and to discuss new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. I believe that clause 19 is an important clarification added to the Bill by the Lords. The Minister spoke passionately about the need for ensuring that those who attended ITT further education courses have awareness of special needs. However, it is precisely because of that that we believe clause 19 is sensible. Government amendment 23 removes clause 19(3), which ensures the duty for initial teacher training providers to provide special educational needs awareness training.
That is particularly important because a huge number of people, later in life, are identifying that they have learning difficulties, be that autism, attention deficit disorder, or Asperger’s syndrome. These were not picked up throughout their school career because there has been such a low level of awareness about such issues within much of the teaching profession.
We know that awareness of issues like autism has improved a great deal in recent years, but there are still many people going through our school system with other conditions, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and others. With access to the right support, teaching could have been provided that recognised their disability and enabled them to access the curriculum to the best of their ability. It would have also enabled them to understand themselves. That is a crucial point about special needs; we must help people to understand themselves. I have spoken to many people who say, “I always knew I was different, but I never knew what it was. It was only in my 20s or my 30s that I realised.” There is a family member of mine in their 40s who has recently identified having a disability of this kind.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I speak as someone with both dyslexia and dyspraxia; I was diagnosed when I was 12. Does the hon. Member agree that it is important to ensure that every single teacher—not just SEN specialists, but regular teachers—have a certain level of understanding of different types of disability, and that not all young people, or adults, process information in the same way?
Mr Perkins
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is precisely the value of this provision. It makes this not the responsibility of the special needs co-ordinator—who, if they get an opportunity to sit down with someone would have that professional awareness— but, instead, makes sure that people right across the sector are able to identify these needs. We would not expect every teacher to become a full SENCO expert, but it is about them having the awareness to identify that there may be issues that need to be given further consideration—that is what I think is of real value.
New clause 2 attempts to find a different way to deliver the same initiative as the one proposed by their noble lordships in clause 19, whose subsection (3) places a duty on teacher training providers to ensure that SEN training is part of their work. In new clause 2, the obligation is on all providers of FE colleges to ensure that all their staff have been provided with special needs awareness training. There are two different ways to deliver that training. It can be delivered at the point where someone is qualifying, or can be certified at the point where someone is employed. There is merit in either approach; simply to dismiss both approaches is really disappointing.
New clause 2 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that there was adequate special educational needs training for teachers of students in further education. Given the high number of students with special educational needs who access further or adult education, often as a second chance when they have had a negative experience of school, it is particularly crucial that trainee teachers in the sector have an awareness of the issues the students face.
We must remember that people within the further education sector are far more likely to have an identified special educational need than those in mainstream schooling. The sector needs this kind of awareness. The Department for Education’s own figures show that the percentage of pupils with a special educational need, but no education, health and care plan, has increased to 12.2%, continuing an upward trend.
Tom Hunt
As the hon. Member will know, it is important to provide support at that stage, but it is also important to start as early as possible. What are his views on the ten-minute rule Bill being introduced today by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), which would require the assessment of every primary school kid for dyslexia, and whether that should be extended to dyspraxia?
The Chair
I am sure Mr Perkins will draw that comment back to the subject of the debate here today, as opposed to what might be going on elsewhere.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)
Tom Hunt ExcerptsThursday 2nd December 2021
(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Is it the case, like it is for me, that when my hon. Friend talks to employers in her constituency they often say, “We’ve got the jobs, but haven’t got the skills locally”? The Bill will play a big part in changing that.
Lia Nici
My hon. Friend is right. A huge number of jobs are available. What we need to do now, and the Bill will enable us to do it, is pivot on an axis to ensure that employers are fully involved. We have some very good education providers in post-compulsory technical that work with employers, but a lot more work needs doing. When I go to see employers in my constituency, they all say that they have jobs available but cannot get people with the right skills. We have to do something about that, not only for our employers and our economy but for our constituents.
My constituency of Great Grimsby is the most wonderful place to live, but our skill levels are not where they need to be, for people in and out of work. If we are to level up for everybody across the country, particularly in my home town of Great Grimsby, T-levels will be a fantastic way for us to move forward. Apprenticeships are also extremely valuable, as people can earn while they learn. I am extremely concerned that we seemingly have a moral panic to try to get headlines to worry young people. I say to young people, and older people who are looking to train to level 3 qualifications, that it is not the disaster that it is being portrayed as for the sake of headlines.
There is a reason we do not want a long moratorium on such things as BTECs, which the Opposition are mentioning over and over again. I have worked in further education for 22 years. I have taught secondary school students and lectured at higher education level, and I happen to have a diploma at level 3, level 4 and level 5—a higher national diploma—one of which happens to be a BTEC. We want to ensure that education providers know exactly what is happening with a deadline. They are now ready to pivot on that. I have been talking to my biggest provider, Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, and its experience of T-levels so far is utterly outstanding.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (First sitting)
Tom Hunt ExcerptsTuesday 30th November 2021
(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I would like to take a moment at the start of these proceedings to talk about the importance of the Bill and the approach that the Labour party will be taking to it, alongside Government amendments 4 and 5.
The skills Bill is of tremendous importance. We recognise that there has been, for a significant time, too little investment in skills and in the next generation. In particular, the drastic funding cuts during the past 11 years have had a dramatic impact on our further education sector and on the skills of the nation. It is recognised by many businesses, employers and players in the further education sector that we have fallen behind.
The Bill represents the Government’s approach to addressing the backlog, and they tell us that this approach places employers at the heart of the skills strategy and skills agenda. When I first heard that, it sounded familiar to me, having been a Member of Parliament for the past 11 years. I thought, “Where have I heard it said before that employers will be at the heart of the skills strategy?” I believed that I had heard that from a previous skills Minister, so we did a bit of research in my office, and it turns out that we have heard it from almost all of them.
Back in January 2011, the then skills Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), said of the Government’s approach to skills and apprenticeships:
“The entire focus of our Skills Strategy is in building a training system that is employer led…Indeed helping meet those skills needs, in businesses across the country, will make a major contribution to economic growth.”
In 2015, the apprenticeship levy was introduced, and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, told us that we now had a system in the hands of an employer-led institute for apprenticeships, and that his levy would be a
“radical, long overdue” new approach to apprenticeship funding. He said in this place that it was
“to raise the skills of the nation and address one of the enduring weaknesses of the British economy.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1370.]
His skills Minister at the time, former Tory MP Nick Boles, said:
“At the heart of the apprenticeship drive is the principle that no one better understands the skills employers need than employers themselves.”
By 2017, the Government were telling us this:
“The Apprenticeship Levy is a cornerstone of the government’s skills agenda, creating a system which puts employers at the heart of designing and funding apprenticeships to support productivity and growth.”
In 2018, the then Education Secretary, now the Minister for Security and Borders, told us that local enterprise partnerships were
“business-led partnerships…at the heart of responding to skills needs and building local industrial strategies that will help individuals and businesses gain the skills they need to grow.”
The rhetoric behind this Bill is exactly the rhetoric that we have been listening to for the past 11 years. Indeed, if the approaches of the past 11 years, which we were told placed employers at the heart of skills policy, had worked, we would not need this Bill. The Government are once again returning with the same prescription for the same ailment. They are once again failing to meet the size of the challenge, and in some cases are heading in the wrong direction altogether.
We have a new Secretary of State in post, of course. He is at great pains to tell people that there will be a change of tone and approach. The Bill was the brainchild of the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), if that is not an oxymoron, who was his predecessor—a man who believed in seizing as much power for himself as possible. Since the appointment of the new Secretary of State, we have been told there will be a change of tone and approach, but the Government’s approach to the cross-party amendments brought by their Lordships is not promising.
We entirely support the amendments in this group, which are about the mayoral combined authorities, but it is remarkable that the Government needed to introduce them; that demonstrates that the Government produced the skills Bill without any recognition of the issue.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has identified a key challenge that the Government are looking to tackle. It will clearly be difficult, but we hope that they will be successful. Does he agree that part of the reason why the challenge is so significant is that the previous Labour Government almost entirely ignored technical education and skills, with their obsession with universities and a 50% target?
Mr Perkins
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that question. That has long been the lament. I speak to my colleagues who were involved in skills policy under the Labour Government, and their retort is that the investment in skills under the Labour Government was far greater than what we have seen in the 11 years that followed. There is nothing contradictory in wanting a strategy that allows as many people who want a university education and who are capable of it to have one, and that also has a real commitment to investment in skills.
Over the 11 years of this Government, we have seen the trashing of the idea that universities should be an aspiration for everyone. Alongside that rhetoric—an example of which we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman—we have seen a massive reduction in the investment in skills, and we have seen policies that do not work. The apprenticeship levy led to a massive reduction in the number of apprenticeships. What is said is one thing; what is done is quite another.
Emma Hardy
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. Looking at the room, I see that people on both sides are genuinely interested in education matters. I hope that this will be a good Committee that really scrutinises the legislation before us in a shared ambition to make the Bill the best that it can be.
I will be brief. I have already made an intervention about guidance on what constitutes due consideration and about the arbitration processes for conflict over whether someone believes they have been duly considered. Will there be a timeframe for that due consideration? Local engagement and agreement for the skills plans is absolutely crucial, so having that clearly laid out is fundamental.
I hope the Minister will clarify something. I may be misreading the Bill, but am I right in thinking that further education colleges have been removed from consultation, or is that part of a later amendment? The Lords tabled an amendment to ensure that local school improvement plans are co-developed with colleges, local government, elected Mayors, employers and so on. Am I right in thinking that colleges are no longer listed as part of the consultation process, or will that be addressed in another amendment? I may have made a mistake, in which case the Minister will correct me.
We are basing everything on employers and the jobs available now, but has the Minister thought about future-proofing the local skills development plans to include industries that will be developed in future, especially in relation to climate, green changes and so on? We might create the best possible plan for jobs that exist now, but that might not be the plan that we want in five years’ time, so will such future-proofing be included?
Tom Hunt
I will make just a few very brief comments. I think that the local skills improvement plans are a huge step in the right direction. It is clearly crucial that local businesses should play a role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges. We need to have far more of an ecosystem approach when it comes to the role of employers, schools, FE colleges and further education. Too often, it seems as if they are kind of on the sides.
Mr Perkins
What does the hon. Gentleman say to my earlier point, which was that what he is saying is exactly what has been said about every single Conservative skills reform in the last 11 years? They always claim that they are putting employers at the heart of the measures. Why does he think those previous approaches have failed?
Tom Hunt
To be honest, we are dealing with the Government we have today. I can say, as somebody with an interest in further education and skills, that this Bill is actually the most significant and potentially game-changing piece of Government legislation. My job is to look at the Bill before us today, and I think it is hugely in the right place. That is not to say that improvements cannot be made at this stage, and we will engage in doing that.
There is one quick point that I would like to make. When we talk about the local skills improvement plans and local employers playing a greater role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges, I think it is important that we consider what might happen. I imagine that the vast majority of education providers will play ball and welcome that input from local business, but on occasions where there may be some resistance and that does not quite work, is there something that could be done to ensure that they come to the table to accept the advice and a steer from local business?
On my comments on Second Reading, which the hon. Member for Chesterfield has often mentioned, I recognise that there is a significant difference between mayoral combined authorities and regular upper-tier local authorities. Certain powers and funding have been devolved to mayoral combined authorities, and we do not have them in every area. I accept that, and I accept why the Government are treating mayoral combined authorities slightly differently from regular upper-tier authorities such as Suffolk County Council. I guess my view would be that the solution is to have more devolution. As somebody who recently, with other Suffolk colleagues, supported a bid for One Suffolk, I would be very happy if there were positive movements so that Suffolk was in a place to have the powers for its principal authority to play a role in local improvement plans.
Andrew Gwynne
It is barmy—there is no other word for it. We are here debating a Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and we are excluding the very bodies that have a direct interest in skills and post-16 education. I just do not understand the Government’s thinking. They have promised collaboration, but you cannot have collaboration if the people and bodies delivering the skills agenda on the ground are explicitly excluded from the creation of those plans.
Tom Hunt
Of course, the bodies that are delivering technical and skills qualifications will continue to have a significant role. Surely the hon. Member must realise that the whole point of local skills improvement plans is to give a strong voice to local businesses? There are other avenues and ways in which providers can shape the offering.
Andrew Gwynne
I would like to know what the avenues are and why they are not in the Bill. If we are talking about developing a genuine partnership and collaboration, and if we are saying, “This is the skills agenda for our country. These are the needs of the next generation of workers in our country. This is where our country is heading with the jobs of tomorrow. This is the inward investment we want to bring in to our country. These are the things we want to make and do and build in our country,” we cannot do that just through business. Business is the way we create jobs, but it is educational institutions, universities and colleges that give the next generation the skills to deliver the strategy on the ground.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is actually the most logical fit for businesses to embrace and be accessible to those who have learning disabilities? As we know, they are often among the most unconventional, creative and brilliant thinkers.
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is absolutely right; something I will come on to in a moment is that when we help young people with special educational needs overcome the barriers to employment, and when we help employers overcome some of the barriers that they may feel exist to employing those young people, it is an extraordinarily mutually beneficial relationship.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I would like to take a moment at the start of these proceedings to talk about the importance of the Bill and the approach that the Labour party will be taking to it, alongside Government amendments 4 and 5.
The skills Bill is of tremendous importance. We recognise that there has been, for a significant time, too little investment in skills and in the next generation. In particular, the drastic funding cuts during the past 11 years have had a dramatic impact on our further education sector and on the skills of the nation. It is recognised by many businesses, employers and players in the further education sector that we have fallen behind.
The Bill represents the Government’s approach to addressing the backlog, and they tell us that this approach places employers at the heart of the skills strategy and skills agenda. When I first heard that, it sounded familiar to me, having been a Member of Parliament for the past 11 years. I thought, “Where have I heard it said before that employers will be at the heart of the skills strategy?” I believed that I had heard that from a previous skills Minister, so we did a bit of research in my office, and it turns out that we have heard it from almost all of them.
Back in January 2011, the then skills Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), said of the Government’s approach to skills and apprenticeships:
“The entire focus of our Skills Strategy is in building a training system that is employer led…Indeed helping meet those skills needs, in businesses across the country, will make a major contribution to economic growth.”
In 2015, the apprenticeship levy was introduced, and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, told us that we now had a system in the hands of an employer-led institute for apprenticeships, and that his levy would be a
“radical, long overdue” new approach to apprenticeship funding. He said in this place that it was
“to raise the skills of the nation and address one of the enduring weaknesses of the British economy.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1370.]
His skills Minister at the time, former Tory MP Nick Boles, said:
“At the heart of the apprenticeship drive is the principle that no one better understands the skills employers need than employers themselves.”
By 2017, the Government were telling us this:
“The Apprenticeship Levy is a cornerstone of the government’s skills agenda, creating a system which puts employers at the heart of designing and funding apprenticeships to support productivity and growth.”
In 2018, the then Education Secretary, now the Minister for Security and Borders, told us that local enterprise partnerships were
“business-led partnerships…at the heart of responding to skills needs and building local industrial strategies that will help individuals and businesses gain the skills they need to grow.”
The rhetoric behind this Bill is exactly the rhetoric that we have been listening to for the past 11 years. Indeed, if the approaches of the past 11 years, which we were told placed employers at the heart of skills policy, had worked, we would not need this Bill. The Government are once again returning with the same prescription for the same ailment. They are once again failing to meet the size of the challenge, and in some cases are heading in the wrong direction altogether.
We have a new Secretary of State in post, of course. He is at great pains to tell people that there will be a change of tone and approach. The Bill was the brainchild of the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), if that is not an oxymoron, who was his predecessor—a man who believed in seizing as much power for himself as possible. Since the appointment of the new Secretary of State, we have been told there will be a change of tone and approach, but the Government’s approach to the cross-party amendments brought by their Lordships is not promising.
We entirely support the amendments in this group, which are about the mayoral combined authorities, but it is remarkable that the Government needed to introduce them; that demonstrates that the Government produced the skills Bill without any recognition of the issue.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has identified a key challenge that the Government are looking to tackle. It will clearly be difficult, but we hope that they will be successful. Does he agree that part of the reason why the challenge is so significant is that the previous Labour Government almost entirely ignored technical education and skills, with their obsession with universities and a 50% target?
Mr Perkins
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that question. That has long been the lament. I speak to my colleagues who were involved in skills policy under the Labour Government, and their retort is that the investment in skills under the Labour Government was far greater than what we have seen in the 11 years that followed. There is nothing contradictory in wanting a strategy that allows as many people who want a university education and who are capable of it to have one, and that also has a real commitment to investment in skills.
Over the 11 years of this Government, we have seen the trashing of the idea that universities should be an aspiration for everyone. Alongside that rhetoric—an example of which we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman—we have seen a massive reduction in the investment in skills, and we have seen policies that do not work. The apprenticeship levy led to a massive reduction in the number of apprenticeships. What is said is one thing; what is done is quite another.
Emma Hardy
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. Looking at the room, I see that people on both sides are genuinely interested in education matters. I hope that this will be a good Committee that really scrutinises the legislation before us in a shared ambition to make the Bill the best that it can be.
I will be brief. I have already made an intervention about guidance on what constitutes due consideration and about the arbitration processes for conflict over whether someone believes they have been duly considered. Will there be a timeframe for that due consideration? Local engagement and agreement for the skills plans is absolutely crucial, so having that clearly laid out is fundamental.
I hope the Minister will clarify something. I may be misreading the Bill, but am I right in thinking that further education colleges have been removed from consultation, or is that part of a later amendment? The Lords tabled an amendment to ensure that local school improvement plans are co-developed with colleges, local government, elected Mayors, employers and so on. Am I right in thinking that colleges are no longer listed as part of the consultation process, or will that be addressed in another amendment? I may have made a mistake, in which case the Minister will correct me.
We are basing everything on employers and the jobs available now, but has the Minister thought about future-proofing the local skills development plans to include industries that will be developed in future, especially in relation to climate, green changes and so on? We might create the best possible plan for jobs that exist now, but that might not be the plan that we want in five years’ time, so will such future-proofing be included?
Tom Hunt
I will make just a few very brief comments. I think that the local skills improvement plans are a huge step in the right direction. It is clearly crucial that local businesses should play a role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges. We need to have far more of an ecosystem approach when it comes to the role of employers, schools, FE colleges and further education. Too often, it seems as if they are kind of on the sides.
Mr Perkins
What does the hon. Gentleman say to my earlier point, which was that what he is saying is exactly what has been said about every single Conservative skills reform in the last 11 years? They always claim that they are putting employers at the heart of the measures. Why does he think those previous approaches have failed?
Tom Hunt
To be honest, we are dealing with the Government we have today. I can say, as somebody with an interest in further education and skills, that this Bill is actually the most significant and potentially game-changing piece of Government legislation. My job is to look at the Bill before us today, and I think it is hugely in the right place. That is not to say that improvements cannot be made at this stage, and we will engage in doing that.
There is one quick point that I would like to make. When we talk about the local skills improvement plans and local employers playing a greater role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges, I think it is important that we consider what might happen. I imagine that the vast majority of education providers will play ball and welcome that input from local business, but on occasions where there may be some resistance and that does not quite work, is there something that could be done to ensure that they come to the table to accept the advice and a steer from local business?
On my comments on Second Reading, which the hon. Member for Chesterfield has often mentioned, I recognise that there is a significant difference between mayoral combined authorities and regular upper-tier local authorities. Certain powers and funding have been devolved to mayoral combined authorities, and we do not have them in every area. I accept that, and I accept why the Government are treating mayoral combined authorities slightly differently from regular upper-tier authorities such as Suffolk County Council. I guess my view would be that the solution is to have more devolution. As somebody who recently, with other Suffolk colleagues, supported a bid for One Suffolk, I would be very happy if there were positive movements so that Suffolk was in a place to have the powers for its principal authority to play a role in local improvement plans.
Andrew Gwynne
It is barmy—there is no other word for it. We are here debating a Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and we are excluding the very bodies that have a direct interest in skills and post-16 education. I just do not understand the Government’s thinking. They have promised collaboration, but you cannot have collaboration if the people and bodies delivering the skills agenda on the ground are explicitly excluded from the creation of those plans.
Tom Hunt
Of course, the bodies that are delivering technical and skills qualifications will continue to have a significant role. Surely the hon. Member must realise that the whole point of local skills improvement plans is to give a strong voice to local businesses? There are other avenues and ways in which providers can shape the offering.
Andrew Gwynne
I would like to know what the avenues are and why they are not in the Bill. If we are talking about developing a genuine partnership and collaboration, and if we are saying, “This is the skills agenda for our country. These are the needs of the next generation of workers in our country. This is where our country is heading with the jobs of tomorrow. This is the inward investment we want to bring in to our country. These are the things we want to make and do and build in our country,” we cannot do that just through business. Business is the way we create jobs, but it is educational institutions, universities and colleges that give the next generation the skills to deliver the strategy on the ground.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (First sitting)
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I would like to take a moment at the start of these proceedings to talk about the importance of the Bill and the approach that the Labour party will be taking to it, alongside Government amendments 4 and 5.
The skills Bill is of tremendous importance. We recognise that there has been, for a significant time, too little investment in skills and in the next generation. In particular, the drastic funding cuts during the past 11 years have had a dramatic impact on our further education sector and on the skills of the nation. It is recognised by many businesses, employers and players in the further education sector that we have fallen behind.
The Bill represents the Government’s approach to addressing the backlog, and they tell us that this approach places employers at the heart of the skills strategy and skills agenda. When I first heard that, it sounded familiar to me, having been a Member of Parliament for the past 11 years. I thought, “Where have I heard it said before that employers will be at the heart of the skills strategy?” I believed that I had heard that from a previous skills Minister, so we did a bit of research in my office, and it turns out that we have heard it from almost all of them.
Back in January 2011, the then skills Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), said of the Government’s approach to skills and apprenticeships:
“The entire focus of our Skills Strategy is in building a training system that is employer led…Indeed helping meet those skills needs, in businesses across the country, will make a major contribution to economic growth.”
In 2015, the apprenticeship levy was introduced, and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, told us that we now had a system in the hands of an employer-led institute for apprenticeships, and that his levy would be a
“radical, long overdue” new approach to apprenticeship funding. He said in this place that it was
“to raise the skills of the nation and address one of the enduring weaknesses of the British economy.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1370.]
His skills Minister at the time, former Tory MP Nick Boles, said:
“At the heart of the apprenticeship drive is the principle that no one better understands the skills employers need than employers themselves.”
By 2017, the Government were telling us this:
“The Apprenticeship Levy is a cornerstone of the government’s skills agenda, creating a system which puts employers at the heart of designing and funding apprenticeships to support productivity and growth.”
In 2018, the then Education Secretary, now the Minister for Security and Borders, told us that local enterprise partnerships were
“business-led partnerships…at the heart of responding to skills needs and building local industrial strategies that will help individuals and businesses gain the skills they need to grow.”
The rhetoric behind this Bill is exactly the rhetoric that we have been listening to for the past 11 years. Indeed, if the approaches of the past 11 years, which we were told placed employers at the heart of skills policy, had worked, we would not need this Bill. The Government are once again returning with the same prescription for the same ailment. They are once again failing to meet the size of the challenge, and in some cases are heading in the wrong direction altogether.
We have a new Secretary of State in post, of course. He is at great pains to tell people that there will be a change of tone and approach. The Bill was the brainchild of the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), if that is not an oxymoron, who was his predecessor—a man who believed in seizing as much power for himself as possible. Since the appointment of the new Secretary of State, we have been told there will be a change of tone and approach, but the Government’s approach to the cross-party amendments brought by their Lordships is not promising.
We entirely support the amendments in this group, which are about the mayoral combined authorities, but it is remarkable that the Government needed to introduce them; that demonstrates that the Government produced the skills Bill without any recognition of the issue.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has identified a key challenge that the Government are looking to tackle. It will clearly be difficult, but we hope that they will be successful. Does he agree that part of the reason why the challenge is so significant is that the previous Labour Government almost entirely ignored technical education and skills, with their obsession with universities and a 50% target?
Mr Perkins
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that question. That has long been the lament. I speak to my colleagues who were involved in skills policy under the Labour Government, and their retort is that the investment in skills under the Labour Government was far greater than what we have seen in the 11 years that followed. There is nothing contradictory in wanting a strategy that allows as many people who want a university education and who are capable of it to have one, and that also has a real commitment to investment in skills.
Over the 11 years of this Government, we have seen the trashing of the idea that universities should be an aspiration for everyone. Alongside that rhetoric—an example of which we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman—we have seen a massive reduction in the investment in skills, and we have seen policies that do not work. The apprenticeship levy led to a massive reduction in the number of apprenticeships. What is said is one thing; what is done is quite another.
Emma Hardy
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. Looking at the room, I see that people on both sides are genuinely interested in education matters. I hope that this will be a good Committee that really scrutinises the legislation before us in a shared ambition to make the Bill the best that it can be.
I will be brief. I have already made an intervention about guidance on what constitutes due consideration and about the arbitration processes for conflict over whether someone believes they have been duly considered. Will there be a timeframe for that due consideration? Local engagement and agreement for the skills plans is absolutely crucial, so having that clearly laid out is fundamental.
I hope the Minister will clarify something. I may be misreading the Bill, but am I right in thinking that further education colleges have been removed from consultation, or is that part of a later amendment? The Lords tabled an amendment to ensure that local school improvement plans are co-developed with colleges, local government, elected Mayors, employers and so on. Am I right in thinking that colleges are no longer listed as part of the consultation process, or will that be addressed in another amendment? I may have made a mistake, in which case the Minister will correct me.
We are basing everything on employers and the jobs available now, but has the Minister thought about future-proofing the local skills development plans to include industries that will be developed in future, especially in relation to climate, green changes and so on? We might create the best possible plan for jobs that exist now, but that might not be the plan that we want in five years’ time, so will such future-proofing be included?
Tom Hunt
I will make just a few very brief comments. I think that the local skills improvement plans are a huge step in the right direction. It is clearly crucial that local businesses should play a role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges. We need to have far more of an ecosystem approach when it comes to the role of employers, schools, FE colleges and further education. Too often, it seems as if they are kind of on the sides.
Mr Perkins
What does the hon. Gentleman say to my earlier point, which was that what he is saying is exactly what has been said about every single Conservative skills reform in the last 11 years? They always claim that they are putting employers at the heart of the measures. Why does he think those previous approaches have failed?
Tom Hunt
To be honest, we are dealing with the Government we have today. I can say, as somebody with an interest in further education and skills, that this Bill is actually the most significant and potentially game-changing piece of Government legislation. My job is to look at the Bill before us today, and I think it is hugely in the right place. That is not to say that improvements cannot be made at this stage, and we will engage in doing that.
There is one quick point that I would like to make. When we talk about the local skills improvement plans and local employers playing a greater role in shaping the curriculum of further education colleges, I think it is important that we consider what might happen. I imagine that the vast majority of education providers will play ball and welcome that input from local business, but on occasions where there may be some resistance and that does not quite work, is there something that could be done to ensure that they come to the table to accept the advice and a steer from local business?
On my comments on Second Reading, which the hon. Member for Chesterfield has often mentioned, I recognise that there is a significant difference between mayoral combined authorities and regular upper-tier local authorities. Certain powers and funding have been devolved to mayoral combined authorities, and we do not have them in every area. I accept that, and I accept why the Government are treating mayoral combined authorities slightly differently from regular upper-tier authorities such as Suffolk County Council. I guess my view would be that the solution is to have more devolution. As somebody who recently, with other Suffolk colleagues, supported a bid for One Suffolk, I would be very happy if there were positive movements so that Suffolk was in a place to have the powers for its principal authority to play a role in local improvement plans.
Andrew Gwynne
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. My comments follow neatly on from those of the hon. Member for Ipswich, because the reality is that much of what the Government want to achieve in the Bill is starting to happen anyway in devolved combined authority areas where the skills agenda has been devolved. I welcome the emphasis on skills improvement plans and, now, the involvement of the mayoral combined authorities in them. It was perhaps remiss that that was not in the Bill originally, and I am pleased that the Minister has tabled an amendment to ensure that it is clearly in the Bill.
Devolution matters. It works, and it is working. It was a Labour Government who introduced the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, which facilitates the devolution agenda. Greater Manchester, my own city region, was the first to have a combined authority in 2011. It had an interim Mayor in 2015—my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd)—and a Mayor in 2017: Andy Burnham. The skills agenda is at the heart of the Greater Manchester combined authority’s strategies. It has a local industrial strategy. It has the Greater Manchester work and skills strategy and priorities. In 2019, it had the adult education budget devolved to it. It has Bridge GM, which links schools and employers.
The thing that I am most proud of, and which fits neatly in the agenda of the Bill, is the Greater Manchester skills for growth strategy, which is designed to fill occupational skills gaps in the Greater Manchester city region, and provide young people and adults with the skills needed to fill the gaps.
However, we need to go beyond that, and I urge the Minister to encourage combined authorities to future-proof and devolve them the powers to do so. Technology is moving at a rapid speed. Our city region economies are changing dramatically in a short space of time, and we need to ensure that the workforce of tomorrow has the skills of tomorrow, not the skills of today. I welcome the fact that the mayoral combined authorities will be included in the Bill.
Andrew Gwynne
It is barmy—there is no other word for it. We are here debating a Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and we are excluding the very bodies that have a direct interest in skills and post-16 education. I just do not understand the Government’s thinking. They have promised collaboration, but you cannot have collaboration if the people and bodies delivering the skills agenda on the ground are explicitly excluded from the creation of those plans.
Tom Hunt
Of course, the bodies that are delivering technical and skills qualifications will continue to have a significant role. Surely the hon. Member must realise that the whole point of local skills improvement plans is to give a strong voice to local businesses? There are other avenues and ways in which providers can shape the offering.
Andrew Gwynne
I would like to know what the avenues are and why they are not in the Bill. If we are talking about developing a genuine partnership and collaboration, and if we are saying, “This is the skills agenda for our country. These are the needs of the next generation of workers in our country. This is where our country is heading with the jobs of tomorrow. This is the inward investment we want to bring in to our country. These are the things we want to make and do and build in our country,” we cannot do that just through business. Business is the way we create jobs, but it is educational institutions, universities and colleges that give the next generation the skills to deliver the strategy on the ground.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (Second sitting)
Tom Hunt ExcerptsTuesday 30th November 2021
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 View all Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 November 2021 - (30 Nov 2021)
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is actually the most logical fit for businesses to embrace and be accessible to those who have learning disabilities? As we know, they are often among the most unconventional, creative and brilliant thinkers.
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is absolutely right; something I will come on to in a moment is that when we help young people with special educational needs overcome the barriers to employment, and when we help employers overcome some of the barriers that they may feel exist to employing those young people, it is an extraordinarily mutually beneficial relationship.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]
Tom Hunt ExcerptsMonday 15th November 2021
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 View all Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 5-R-II Second marshalled list for Report - (14 Oct 2021)
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is wonderful to see the focus on adult education in the Bill, but I agree with some of the comments that there should not be an arbitrary distinction between an area that happens to have a Mayor and combined authority and an area that does not. I do not see why Suffolk should not benefit from devolved adult education in the same way as Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, which happen to have a Mayor.
For the skills improvement plans, some areas will have an effective chamber of commerce that can work well, and other areas will not have an effective chamber of commerce but a much better local enterprise partnership. A little flexibility on that point would be welcome. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) about the relationship between further education and higher education and the role of higher education in these plans. Fortunately, we in Ipswich benefit from a very strong relationship between the University of Suffolk and Suffolk New College. In Ipswich and Suffolk, the University of Suffolk has a critical role to play in degree apprenticeships and skills, and it is playing that role through the town deal and other Government support.
On the broader point about having one ecosystem, that is also linked to breaking down the barriers between schools, further education, higher education and business, and getting to the point where there is one ecosystem with no silos. That is ultimately what we want, linking not just young people but all people with local opportunities for higher-wage jobs so that they can get on. In terms of the importance of levelling up, in certain deprived areas, if there is only one, academic, pathway, a certain number of people might crack that pathway, but they often leave the area and never come back. It is vital that there is also a technical route that links in with local opportunities, because a lot of people who succeed in that route will be role models in their area and play a role in levelling up whole communities.
How is Ipswich currently benefiting from this movement in direction and strategy in further education? There are bad things and good things—mostly good. Through the town deal, we have £1.2 million going into a maritime skills academy that will train the next generation of boat builders—a highly skilled profession. In the past, most of the people who worked at Spirit Yachts were from outside the area; now, through the Government project, they will be from the local area, which is good thing. There is also the £2 million tech camp, with net zero, sustainable methods of construction—the first of its type in the country. The University of Suffolk’s £2.5 million integrated health and social care academy, achieved through the town deal, is very much to be welcomed. Last week, we learned that Suffolk New College, which I think is the best further education college in the country, has approximately £4 million of post-16 capacity funding from the overall fund of £85 million. Suffolk New College is one of 39 further education colleges to benefit from that funding, so although I have not had confirmed exactly how much we will get, I suspect that it will be about £3 million or £4 million, if I am being ambitious.
I very much welcome the Bill. We have to have multiple pathways to enable people to get on, and we have to have a proper approach to adult education, but flexibility is a must.
University Tuition Fees
Tom Hunt Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Esther McVey (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I encourage hon. Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government and House of Commons Commission guidance. Please give one another and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 550344, relating to university tuition fees.
It is a pleasure, Ms McVey, to serve under your chairship for the first time. I thank the petitioner for putting together a petition on this important issue, and the 581,287 people—a very large number—who signed the petition, particularly the 764 from Ipswich. That number does not surprise me, because I have been contacted by many constituents over the past 22 months with concerns about how university education has been impacted by the pandemic and about having to pay full tuition fees, even though, so often, their education and university lifestyle have been disrupted.
The petition first calls for a reduction in tuition fees from £9,250 a year to £3,000. Secondly, it calls for live debates to be held frequently between Members of Parliament and students. Though in principle that sounds like quite a good idea, practically I am unsure how it would be arranged. If we were to have those sorts of debates between MPs and students, where would it stop? Would we have such debates for every interest group on every issue across the land? It is important to remember that we are a representative democracy and that, as Members of Parliament, we engage frequently with higher education students.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
It is also worth saying for the benefit of those watching the debate that there is the opportunity to visit Parliament and see debates take place. As the hon. Gentleman says, debates between MPs and students may be a little more difficult to organise, although not impossible, but it would be great to see student organisations come and meet MPs and see what goes on in Parliament and how they can influence it.
Tom Hunt
I could not agree more. I have the University of Suffolk in in my constituency, whose students have visited Parliament, and I was very happy to receive them. It provides a good opportunity for university students to engage with their elected representatives and understand how Parliament operates.
The £9,250 fee means that those leaving university have an average debt of £45,000. It is not a particularly pernicious form of debt, but it still has interest applied to it. That debt has to be paid over a number of years, often decades. In fact, it is thought that only 25% pay it back in full—the interest and the amount borrowed—while 75% do not. The concern about the level of fees is that it could put off young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds from attending university. The Education Committee published a report not long ago on white working-class kids, and found that they were the least likely of any group to be represented in higher education, with only 12% of white boys eligible for free school meals ending up in university. I think the percentage was slightly higher for girls, at around 15% or 16%. That is a point that the Government need to consider.
Repayment does not kick in until someone is earning £28,000, but that can still be difficult for people who are trying to get by. As I saw when I was trying to get a mortgage, it is taken into account by mortgage providers. It does not impact a person’s credit rating, but it does impact their likely success in getting a mortgage. I have sat there and looked at my monthly outgoings and ingoings, and clearly, if a certain amount is going out over a long period, that does not make it any easier to get a mortgage.
There are two slightly separate issues here. There is the question whether, in the medium to long term, tuition fees should be decreased, but there is also the impact of the pandemic and the question whether or not there should be a partial or full reduction for young people who have been impacted by the pandemic over the last 22 months. It is important that we bear in mind how young people and their mental health have been impacted.
We know that university is not just about the academic side of things. It is also about the social side of things. For many young people, the experience of going to university is transformative in terms of their outlook, personal development and access to university societies and everything else. I was fortunate when I went to university. The first year enabled me to get used to living in a large city, away from my family. Of course, the first year is when students make friends, and they are often the people they live with in their second and third years. I feel great sympathy for young people who have had that opportunity taken away from them.
I have also on occasion been quite critical of some universities, lecturers and university unions that in my view have not always done everything they can to get back to proper, in-person teaching. My understanding is that, at the start of this term, only four out of the top 27 universities had actually gone back fully to in-person teaching. I question whether that is appropriate, and I also question whether now is the time to be talking about strikes, when university students have already had their education impacted so much. I appreciate that often it is a hybrid approach, whereby seminars and tuition are done in person while lectures are done online, but I also talk to many university students who would really appreciate in-person lectures because the virtual ones are no substitute for accessing lectures given by experienced academics. It is not quite the same level of tuition as they were getting before the pandemic. In fact, a Times survey of students who started university before the pandemic showed that 60% thought that their education had been either severely or moderately impacted during the pandemic. I think that many students share that view. I understand that some universities have made arrangements for partial reductions, but I am not sure how significant that is and, of course, the majority of universities have not done that.
I have some concerns about whether decreasing tuition fees from £9,250 to £3,000 would be the right thing to do in the long term. As I said earlier in my speech, 75% end up not paying back their debts in full. Currently the Government lend £17 billion in loans. In March 2021, I believe that the outstanding amount was £141 billion, which is a significant amount of money. If we decrease the £9,250 to £3,000, who would fund that? Would it be the taxpayer? Ultimately, I think that is what we would be looking at: more taxpayer subsidy for university education.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
Interim results of a Muslim Census survey show that almost 10,000 Muslim students are foregoing university or are being forced to self-pay. In 2013, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, committed to looking into options for alternative student finance for those who want to access higher education but not pay interest. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is high time that the Government pick up that work from 2013 and look at and present the options for the many students affected across the country?
Tom Hunt
I do think it is important that the Government look at access to university education and ways of making it more affordable, but I also believe that the taxpayer is a key stakeholder. I will come on to that very shortly. There is a fundamental question whether we think it is the right thing for 50% of people to go university. That was the aspiration of the last Labour Government and I am glad that the current Government abandoned that 50% target. I do not think that that was the right thing to do. Many of those 50% going to university will benefit from it, get skills and qualifications, and make a very positive contribution. However, the reality is that, because the education system has not in the past created multiple pathways for young people, including technical education or an apprenticeship, young people kind of meander aimlessly into university, under pressure from their school and their parents, when university is perhaps not right for them. There is no God-given right to go to university for three years, perhaps to study a course that is not of great benefit to the country, so I question whether that is the right approach.
It is critical for levelling up that we invest in apprenticeships and skills. For those growing up, there should be an academic pathway, and those convinced that that is the route for them should be encouraged to go down that route, but people should not end up in university simply because there is no alternative, which often happens. If we are arguing for greater taxpayer subsidy of university education, surely it is reasonable for the taxpayer and the Government to have a far greater say in who goes to university, what they study and how that benefits UK plc, because at the moment there is not always a sense that that is the case.
I think there is great sympathy from all Members for what university students have had to go through over the last 22 months, and there is a reasonable case for their not having to pay full tuition fees for what has been a disrupted educational experience, with almost none of the same advantages, in terms of societies and socialisation. However, in the long term, the Government are right to focus on the further education White Paper and on getting rid of the 50% target, and realising that it is not all about university. It is not unreasonable to consider the taxpayer. Often, those on reasonably low incomes, who work hard, actually subsidise the university education of people from more privileged backgrounds, who may or may not be undertaking a course that is beneficial to UK plc. That is not reasonable.
I do not support the petition with the higher education system as it is currently is. If we had a much smaller pool of university students, perhaps we could consider it at that time, but I do not believe that it is in the taxpayers’ interest to back this petition.
Esther McVey (in the Chair)
We will come to the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 5.30 pm. Given the number of Back-Bench Members here, I will not set a time limit.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey.
I know from speaking to students that many face extreme financial hardship as a result of the covid-19 crisis. In fact, the National Union of Students criticised the Government for ignoring the needs of students throughout the pandemic, but this goes back further, because successive Conservative Governments have failed our young people, who have been disproportionately hit by austerity. Under the Tories, young people have struggled, even when they are in work, to get a decent start in their adult lives. The Tories have run down our aspirations and standards and shattered our local communities, so that people increasingly believe that young people’s lives will be worse than their own generation’s.
This is not just about education maintenance cuts, enormous hikes in tuition fees and the burden of soaring debts. The whole current university system compounds inequality. In particular, a 2017 report found that students from poorer backgrounds are deterred from applying to university due to the fear of student loan debt. Meanwhile, in recent decades universities have been treated as private businesses, left at the mercy of market forces while top salaries soar, so it is no coincidence that the University and College Union is currently balloting staff at over 150 universities across the UK on cuts to pensions, pay and the attack on working conditions. As Jo Grady, the UCU general secretary, said:
“If the government pushes through regressive student loan changes,”
it would be
“a tax on education and aspiration.”
Any move to lower the salary threshold at which students repay their loans would be regressive and would further risk less-privileged students being put off entering higher education. At a time when the economy is crying out for a skilled and educated workforce, it makes no sense for the Government to deny young people access to the education that they need.
I agree that tuition fees of £9,250 a year are just too high—I oppose tuition fees altogether. The lesson from the Government’s tuition fee fiasco is simple: use progressive taxation, by taxing wealthy working adults, to invest properly in public universities. That way, every student can access free higher education. We all benefit from an educated society. Education fosters and nurtures people’s talents, and overcomes injustice and inequalities.
Apsana Begum
I agree that a number of different options should be, and are, available for students across the country, but a significant number of young people who would like to go into higher education do not feel that that option is open to them.
Education fosters and nurtures people’s talents, overcomes injustice and inequalities, and helps us to understand each other and form social connections. I am proud that Labour’s 2017 and 2019 manifestoes committed to ending the failed obsession with the free market in higher education, to abolishing tuition fees, and to bringing back maintenance grants at the required level. Education must be a universal right, not a costly privilege. A thriving higher education sector is critical to our economy, our culture and, ultimately, our future.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Welcome to the Chair, Ms McVey, and congratulations on your elevation.
I thank all Members who contributed to the debate, and the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for presenting it. I listened to him with interest. He is right when he talks about the very interrupted last 18 months that students have endured and the great challenges they have faced. Many Members across the Chamber highlighted the deep frustration among students in this country, which is quite understandable, and perhaps their rising anger about what they have been through. As my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said when voicing concern about graduate employment, this is a really difficult time for many young people as they emerge from what should have been an amazingly formative part of their lives, only to find their prospects so reduced, despite the difficulty they have faced and the financial commitment they have made. That is the difficulty that some of us were in 30-odd or 40 years ago, emerging from university in the early ’80s when things were so difficult.
My hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) also spoke about the issues facing students in the past 18 months. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse specifically spoke about disadvantaged students and cited the survey about Muslim students and the difficulty they face in financing their higher education. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central talked about how we should fund this in the future and about progressive taxation. Back in my day, that is how a university education was funded. I do not think any of us back in those days saw education as transactional; it was not individualised in the way that it is today. We have to disconnect the current view of education—that it is all about the individual—and make it about what the individual can gain from it, how they can realise their potential and how that potential can benefit not only them but those around them: society, their communities and others. That is what higher education should do.
I accept that higher education should not be for all, but it should be an aspiration and an opportunity for those who have the ability to benefit from it, with society benefiting in turn. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) mentioned how higher education is viewed in Germany, which has a population 60% larger than the UK’s and where a great many go on to higher education, with nominal admission fees, because there education is seen as being for the greater good.
We also have to bear in mind that higher education is part of our global reputation. We should celebrate and build upon it, rather than seek to reduce it. I say that not only for the institutions themselves. With such a great resource on our doorstep, why would we not use it? We do not want only international students to come to the UK; we want all those in the UK who have the ability to benefit from it.
Almost 600,000 students across the country signing the petition is significant. I have to say to those students who did not sign the petition, why not? They should think about it next time. It is a really important demonstration of the frustration and of the demand for change. The last 18 months have instilled a culture of precarity, uncertainty and instability among students. They have been some of the toughest months that any student in any generation has faced.
I remember what was going on in my community during the Government’s mismanagement of the return to campus in September 2020, when we did not have testing facilities available in towns and cities across the country. The great migration was not anticipated. The uncertainty created by poor guidance affected not just students, but teachers and lecturers. Sadly, this led to regrettable scenes of students being locked up in student accommodation. Demands from the student body were woefully neglected in the road map out of the January lockdown, and we saw unjustified intervention by Ministers in what I regard as campus matters. Among student cohorts and the sector, there is an indelible impression that the Government have failed to support them.
Given that education is devolved and we have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West, we do not have to look far to see how supportive and hands-on the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments have been. No wonder the tenor of students has risen; it is more than understandable why such a large proportion of the student body want fees to be cut to the level that was introduced in 2006.
Although I empathise with these calls, I want us go further. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West said, higher education should be about people’s ability to learn, not their ability to pay. In my opinion, reducing the maximum rate of student fees merely tinkers with the fees’ structure without offering root-and-branch reform. The trebling of student fees by successive Conservative Governments, including when in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, established a funding model that has contributed to the marketisation of the higher education sector, whilst at the same time increasing the casualisation of the workforce and risking the student experience. The fee system in its current guise is holding young people back—we have heard about a great many of them in Slough—and at the same time failing to provide the stable funding that our universities need. It is not even delivering what was promised for the taxpayer.
To those who say that reducing the maximum student loan rate is preferable to not reducing it, I reply that I am not prepared to advocate for a partially effective solution. On the basis of independent analysis by bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a policy of reducing fees to £3,000 would have disproportionate impacts on different sections of society. For example, the IFS’s student finance calculator reveals that if a cap of £3,000 is put in place, the top 10% of earners would see their repayments fall by around 40%, while lower earning graduates would see little or no change. Looking at this policy from a gender perspective, we see that for men repayments would reduce by an average of 30%, compared to a reduction of just 20% for women. I am sure you are also outraged by that, Ms McVey. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse that this disproportionately impacts Muslim students. Although the maximum cap on tuition fees is not an inherently sexist or classist policy, in reality it affects many and it has the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities in our society. That is not something that I am prepared to put up with.
I am also not prepared to put up with a fee structure that aggravates precarious student living, does nothing to alleviate the mental health concerns of thousands of students, and alienates working-class young people from advancing to higher education. Faced with fees of £9,250 a year, how could anyone expect a working-class student on free school meals to be instilled with the confidence to go to university? The figures bear this out: last week, the Department for Education’s own figures demonstrated that the gap in progression rates between pupils who receive free school meals and those who do not has increased to 19.1%, up 0.3% since last year and the largest gap since 2005-2006. Again, although the policy of student fees is not necessarily a causal factor in this damning record, it certainly is a correlative factor. I repeat that the gap is the largest since the introduction of tuition fees in 2006.
The effects of the current fees system have also decimated the part-time study model so often relied on by working parents and mature students. Since 2008 the number of part-time entrants has plummeted by 50%.
Matt Western
The current vogue term is outcomes. I often ask, “What was the key outcome of Keith Richards going to art school?” I do not think he actually finished the course, so it was not a terrific outcome. Outcomes can be measured in all sorts of ways, but my fear is that the Government—I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman supports them—are looking to monetise that and equate it with some sort of financial value for what is being produced. However, as we have heard, we cannot equate that with a monetary figure. I know of many people who were on super-low incomes in their first couple of years post-university but who turned out to be fine entrepreneurs and set up their own businesses. How would we measure that?
Tom Hunt
I thank the Minister for her very detailed response to the debate, and I also thank the shadow Minister, the spokesperson for the Scottish National party and the other Back Benchers present. I feel confident that this issue has been debated thoroughly and that many different views have been shared. Clearly, this is a huge issue, and we await the Government’s response to the matter.
It seems to me that a key point here is that there are different views about the £9,250 level and whether it is too high or about right. The reality is that for many people who go to university, it is still a good investment, because students come out of university with a qualification that enables them to earn a good salary and have a very fulfilling career. Sadly, for some that is not case. Some people who go to university might have been pressured into it. I do not underestimate how transformative university can be in a positive way, but it is not for everyone. For many people, going to university might not have been the right decision.
Matt Western
The hon. Gentleman talks about an investment as a personal investment, which is the crux of the issue. It is not just the cost to the individual, because there is a cost to us as taxpayers. Should it be a socialised cost, which is a cost to all of society as an investment in our future generations who might pay our pensions, look after us or teach our children? Or should the cost be paid by the individual?
Tom Hunt
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In the first case, many taxpayers would want more of a view on the courses that people were studying at university. They would question some of the courses being studied and whether they offer value to the taxpayer. The system might look very different from what it does at the moment.
I agreed with a lot of what the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) said about technical education and parity of esteem. She is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who chairs the Education Committee, has talked about the dinner party test. He says that people might talk about how good apprenticeships are, but when it comes to their own kids they advise them to go to university. If someone at a dinner says, “Charlie has gone to Oxford University”, and someone else says, “Bella got an apprenticeship with Jaguar Land Rover”, most of the excitement will be about Charlie, not Bella. Ultimately, we need to change that perception.
Higher education is important, but it is just part of the story and part of the debate when it comes to the future of our young people. The FE White Paper and the skills improvement boards are a real step forward. Giving local business more of a role in shaping the FE curriculum is important. It is about an ecosystem approach and linking together schools, FE colleges and universities, if there is one in the area, and local business. I see it as trying to link up young people with opportunities in the country and specifically in their area, because we do see opportunities in different sectors and young people without the skills to take advantage of those opportunities.
A lot of people still look down on technical education. They do not see it having the same inherent value as an academic pathway. It is not about saying to people from lower income backgrounds, “The academic pathway is not for you, so here is the technical route.” It is absolutely about a whole-society approach, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North West said, and taking away snobbishness about technical education. And it is not about downgrading or devaluing a university education; it is just admitting that we must have multiple pathways. That is crucial for the levelling-up agenda that the Prime Minister has made clear time and again. Thank you, Ms McVey, for chairing today’s debate; you have done so superbly.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 550344, relating to university tuition fees.