Equality of Funding: Post-16 Education

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle).

I am always happy to speak up for my outstanding sixth-form colleges and to praise their achievements, but I also need to raise their issues. Peter McGhee, the head of St John Rigby College, puts their problems much better than I ever could. He says that we have outstanding provision in Wigan for school leavers, thanks to years and years of hard work dedicated to the needs of the young people in the community, but that is under threat due to chronic underfunding.

Peter is constantly in the difficult position of deciding between increasing the workload of staff members, who are paid £7,000 less on average than those in schools, reducing staff numbers, or restricting maintenance and equipment. What his college did was to restrict the maintenance and investment in equipment, despite the growth in student numbers. It prioritised teaching and staffing, and the essential support services that we hear so much about, because those enable students to learn successfully. However, it is now essential for the head to invest in equipment and in the estate. I support the need for some fund that colleges can make bids to, because they are now considering previously unpalatable decisions.

St John Rigby College is looking at the “Future Pathways” options, which inspire the next generation of scientists, leaders and teachers, and provide exceptional opportunities for young people to explore career options. However, they are not funded, and something has to give. In my area, where many young people traditionally have low aspirations, if those doors are closed, there will just be a further decline in the number of graduates, and young people’s horizons will be limited, just as we should be encouraging them to move forward.

Peter says that the marginal increase in rate will do little to address the years of catch-up investment needed, never mind the opportunity to provide exciting unfunded enrichment programmes, to forward plan or to provide the facilities and investment that young people in Wigan richly deserve. The wider community loses out too. This community college meets the needs of the wider community because it has weekend community sports provision, but that is desperate for investment. Winstanley College has not been able to offer German A-level for the past couple of years. Every year, it pays £200,000 to the Government in VAT.

I want to finish with some questions and comments, not from me, but from someone much better placed to speak about this issue—the principal at St John Rigby, who said:

“Why are we presenting our college leaders with such unpalatable decisions? Why do they have to decide each year on getting rid of the next ‘best worst option’? These colleges function as a whole package for our young people, educating the whole person, providing a college experience which transforms lives. We can dilute this experience no more. We must invest in the futures of our young people and we must put their educational experience at the heart of this investment.”

Hearing such heartfelt questions and comments from a dedicated professional who has spent his life working to benefit young people, and who heads a college designated as outstanding, will the Minister not agree that it is time to raise the rate?