Education and Skills Reform

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the teaching he did in his former career. He is absolutely right. Degree apprenticeships and apprenticeships are becoming increasingly popular. As with T-levels, when we have good vocational and technical qualifications that combine those things, they become really in demand as people can see the value of them. I do want to see an expansion of degree apprenticeships across higher education. I also want to see more level 4 and 5 apprenticeships being offered, so we have clear pathways and lines of sight that help young people get confidence and get into the world of work.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State commend the staff at specialist schools such as Summerwood in Dorset, where my son George goes, who pick children up after they have been failed by mainstream education, give them the confidence to sit exams such as GCSEs that they never believed they would sit and, when they do not actually make it, give them the resilience to have another go? It is so important to give these children hope. Will the Secretary of State explain how parents, young people and the teaching staff themselves can influence which qualifications children will take, because so often it is based on “the funding says no” and the children then cannot take the qualifications that suit them best?

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Lady raises a really good point and I am happy to join her in praising the staff of Summerwood school, which her son attends. This is about ensuring that the mainstream offer is also more inclusive. If I had a pound for every parent or child who said to me that school just had not worked for them and that they had had to leave the school system because it was not designed for them, I would be very rich indeed. Sitting alongside our important SEN reforms are the curriculum and inclusion reforms that we will be bringing in. Of course, people will be able to help design those and she should not, hopefully, worry too much about some of the issues.