Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whose opinion I value highly. He and I have worked on education for a number of years on a cross-party basis. The important thing to remember is that the Sainsbury review was clear that for T-levels to succeed, where there is duplication and lower quality, we need to remove lower quality; that does not mean getting rid of high-quality BTECs. I will say a little more tonight that I hope will reassure the House on how we are doing that without kicking the ladder of opportunity away from anyone who deserves that opportunity. I hope I will be able to allay some of his fears.

Going back to the reform of our system, we are extending the powers of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to approve a broader range of technical educational qualifications. The institute will ensure that the independent voice of employers is embedded throughout the process, while working in harmony with Ofqual to ensure quality.

I want to be perfectly clear: the Bill focuses on the approval and regulation of technical qualifications, rather than the funding of technical or academic qualifications. However, when it comes to both academic and technical qualifications, what we are looking for the most is quality. There is no point in a student taking a low-quality level 3 qualification that does not equip them with skills for a job or help them to progress into higher education. That is even more important when it comes to disadvantaged students.

We have more than 12,000 qualifications at level 3 and below. By comparison, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, all widely regarded as having high-performing technical education systems, have around 500 or fewer. Our qualifications review is vital to ensuring that what is on the market is the best it can be. I am clear that T-levels and A-levels should be front and centre of the level 3 landscape, but I am convinced that we need other qualifications alongside them, many of which exist now and play a valuable role in supporting good outcomes for students. It is quite likely that many BTECs and similar applied general-style qualifications will continue to play an important role in 16-to-19 education for the foreseeable future.

Our reforms to the qualifications landscape are rightly ambitious, but we know that we would be wrong to push too hard and risk compromising quality. That is why I am announcing today that we have decided to allow an extra year before our reform timetable is implemented. The extra year will allow us to continue to work hard to support the growth of T-levels and give more notice to providers, awarding organisations, employers, students and parents, so that they can prepare for the changes.

I am a firm believer in T-levels. As I have said before, I want them to become as famous as A-levels, and I want to ensure that we get them right. As many young people as possible should have the advantage of studying for and successfully completing a T-level. We hear consistently that some students are put off taking a T-level because they are worried that they will fail if they do not reach level 2 in English and maths. We want to change that and bring T-levels in line with other qualifications, including A-levels. We are absolutely clear that English and maths should remain central to T-level programmes, but we do not want to unnecessarily inhibit talented students from accessing T-levels simply because of the additional hurdle that reaching level 2 in English and maths represents. That is why I can also announce today that we will remove the English and maths exit requirements from T-levels. That will bring them in line with other qualifications, including A-levels, and ensure that talented young people with more diverse strengths are not arbitrarily shut out from rewarding careers in sectors such as construction, catering and healthcare. The institute is taking immediate steps towards that.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Fewer than 1% of college students are on a course with coverage of climate change. Unless we embed climate change and the environment into our post-16 education, the Government’s plans to get to net zero will simply not be possible. Bath College is offering some of those courses and doing something about it. Will the Secretary of State commit the Government to putting its weight behind courses that embed climate change into the curriculum?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We must have very short interventions at this stage, because we have a lot of people who want to contribute to the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

This Bill is an opportunity for us to give further education the attention that it deserves, but if we are to realise the full potential of further education, we must make up for years of cuts under successive Conservative Governments. It is the worst-funded sector in our cash-strapped education system, particularly for adult learners. We have already had many debates on this subject. Jayne Davis, the new principal of the excellent Bath College, told me that further education in this country was at a “tipping point”. The sector does not need catch-up funding; it needs a long-term funding strategy.

Further education must be at the front and centre of our covid recovery, creating a workforce that has the skills we need to fill the gaps in our national and local economies. I need no excuse to talk once more about the fantastic efforts of Bath College, Bath Spa University, Bath and North East Somerset Council, and the Institute of Coding. Together, they were quick off the mark in response to covid, to get the I-START project up and running. The project enables our workforce to upskill through blended, flexible modules. Those who have spoken today about a flexible education system should look no further than Bath for an example of what can be achieved through collaboration between our local authorities and all parts of our education sector.

A key opportunity for further education is to be at the forefront of our efforts to reach net zero. Currently, fewer than 1% of college students are on a course with broad coverage of climate education. Unless we embed climate and environment in our post-16 education curriculum, the Government’s plans for net zero will simply not be possible.

Bath College is doing that already, and now the Government must step up as well. This Bill should be helping students—their voice must not be lost along the way—but the Government’s proposals to defund BTECs, about which we have heard a great deal tonight, will leave many students without a viable pathway at the age of 16. Current estimates suggest that at least 30% of students in England currently studying at level 3 are pursuing a BTEC. Withdrawing support from BTECs could lead to those students studying for a qualification that was not right for them, or dropping out of education altogether.

T-levels are a welcome development, and I hope they will give future generations the technical skills that they need to succeed in their careers, but BTECs do that as well. Creative subjects such as performing arts are among the first courses that fill up in our local college. BTECs are important to those who study for them, and they are also important to Bath. We must not take choice away from students.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point with which I thoroughly agree.

Our creative sector is a key export to the world and is part of our global influence. Why should young people in Luton not have the ability to train in these areas? They will not necessarily be able to follow a T-level in this subject area, so I totally agree with my hon. Friend.

I hope the Minister will accept Opposition amendment 15 to prevent the defunding of many successful and much-needed level 3 BTECs.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Further education should be about creating a workforce that meets the needs of our national and local economies. It should be about lifelong learning that gives everyone the power to follow the path that best suits them. It should especially be at the front and centre of our covid recovery and, last but not least, it should help us with the transition to net zero.

There was plenty of room to improve this Bill when it was introduced, and there still is. I regret that, so far, the Government seem to be missing this opportunity, but it is never too late. I favour new clause 4, which would require the Secretary of State to introduce a green skills strategy for higher, further and technical education. There is a key opportunity for further education in our effort to reach net zero, but less than 1% of college students are on a course with broad coverage of climate education. I commend the work of the excellent Bath College, which is already making strides to embed climate education in its curriculum, but the Government should step up, too.

We all know how important it is to manage the transition to net zero, which brings me to new clauses 14 and 15 and amendment 11 tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The offshore training regime is a barrier to offshore oil and gas workers transitioning their skills into the renewables sector. A new offshore training scheme is needed to facilitate cross-sector recognition of core skills and training in the offshore energy sector and to provide a retraining guarantee for oil and gas workers who wish to transition to careers in the green energy sector. What a missed opportunity it would be if we did not help people working in such industries, which will soon no longer be in place, to transition to a career in industries such as the renewables sector.

The Government say this Bill will transform opportunities for all, so why have they reversed changes that could significantly improve the accessibility and flexibility of qualifications—we have heard some powerful contributions on this—especially those aimed at learners with special educational needs and disabilities? Over a quarter of all 16 to 18-year-olds in further education have a learning difficulty or a disability, and I pay tribute to Project SEARCH, a partnership run by Bath and North East Somerset Council, Bath College and Virgin Care.

Nationally, too, many disabled people face huge difficulties in accessing employment after leaving school. Our disability employment gap stands at 30%.I therefore add my support to amendment 16, which would require local skills improvement plans to list specific strategies to help into employment those learners who have or have had an education, health and care plan. Again, this seems to be another missed opportunity to help those in society who face the biggest disadvantages to access employment, which is what they want. Whenever we talk to disability groups, what they want is employment; helping these groups into employment should be at the core of this Bill.

Although I will support the Bill on Third Reading, I am disappointed that the opportunity to transform further education has been so entirely missed.

[Alex Burghart]

With the leave of the House, I will speak to some of the amendments that have been discussed this evening. It has been a real pleasure to have been involved with this Bill on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report this evening. I feel the strength of feeling across the House for the skills agenda. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for skills, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made clear. Never in my lifetime has there been such a hunger for skills in the economy, and that is a hunger that this Government will feed, because we are building a system in which qualifications, co-designed with employers, will give students the skills the economy needs. We will see good opportunities, allowing everyone to take a step forward in their life and career, and qualifications, backed by employers, that feed the needs of the economy.

In the time I have, I want to get through as many of the amendments as I can. First, I will address new clause 1, which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, the Chair of the Education Committee. I pay tribute to his fight for the cause of apprenticeships for prisoners; I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor made an announcement to this effect on 11 January, and I am happy to put on record that my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow was instrumental in driving this forward. We do not need to accept this new clause because we have seen that this can be done in secondary legislation, and that changes to primary legislation are not needed.

I turn to new clause 2, also tabled my right hon. Friend, and to new clause 7, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who did sterling work when he was on the Front Bench. Those provisions both seek to place a level 3 entitlement on a statutory footing. The Government are delighted by the enthusiasm of Members on both sides of the House and in both Chambers for our free courses for jobs offer and the lifetime skills guarantee that the Prime Minister announced last April. As the House will know, it gives adults who do not have a level 3 qualification the opportunity to get a qualification in high-value subjects for free, regardless of age. That major step forward will transform life chances. We do not think it is right to put this offer into legislation; that would constrain the Government in how they allocate resources and make it more difficult to adapt the policy to changing circumstances, including for adults most in need. For example, only last November, the Secretary of State announced that from this April, the offer will expand to include any adult in England who is unemployed or earns below the national living wage annually, regardless of their prior qualification level.

New clause 2 also includes a provision requiring any employer who receives apprenticeship funding to spend at least two thirds of that funding on people who begin apprenticeships at level 2 and 3 before the age of 25. We fully respect what the new clause is trying to do, but we point to the great progress we are already making on this score. In the first quarter of last year—the most recent one for which we have figures—62% of apprenticeship starts were for people under the age of 25, and level 2 and 3 apprenticeships accounted for 71% of all starts. That is wonderful stuff. Also, during the recent National Apprenticeship Week, I met a huge number of young and not-so-young people studying level 6 apprenticeships, which are making an enormous difference to their life, giving them huge opportunities in a way that is a greatly respected by employers. I do not wish to see arbitrary levels fixed in legislation.

Amendment 12, tabled by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), seeks to require a review of the operation of the apprenticeship levy, particularly at level 3 and below. We discussed this issue at some length in Committee. I reiterate that the Government have already radically reformed apprenticeships to put employers at their heart, increasing investment and improving quality. As I just said, we are starting to see major improvements at levels 2 and 3.