Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Rutley and Robert Halfon

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

13. What steps the Government are taking to improve the quality of further education.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

We are building an apprenticeship and skills nation, and crafting a ladder of opportunity to create widespread provision to meet our skills needs and to help those with social disadvantage. We are spending £80 million on national colleges and £170 million on institute of technology colleges, with extra money for further education.

[David Rutley]

I welcome the progress that Ministers are making in helping to raise the profile of and standards in technical education. What steps are being taken to help to improve the job prospects of the young people who will benefit from the £500 million investment announced in the Budget?

[Robert Halfon]

From 2019, students will have a choice of two routes: an academic route, or a state-of-the-art technical route with 15 different routes within it. We are investing in that, as I have said, and we are investing an extra £500 million on top of the existing funds. We are building the skills and apprenticeship nation that our country needs, and we are creating the skills that people and employers need.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between David Rutley and Robert Halfon

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I want to give my special thanks to all the individuals who have shared their time and knowledge during the Bill’s passage through the House, to the officials who have worked so hard to bring it before Parliament and to those providing written and oral evidence. I would like to thank members of the Committee for their diligent approach and careful consideration of the practical implications of the Bill, and Members who have already spoken today.

I am clear about the priorities that we want to see in apprenticeships, further education and skills, creating a ladder of opportunity for all. These include a transformation of prestige and culture; widespread, high-quality provision; a system that addresses our skills needs; social justice; and job security and prosperity. The Bill seeks to build those priorities into our system, bringing to life the fundamental reforms needed to ensure that we have a skills and education system that rivals the best in the world.

For too long, technical education has been overly complex, overlooked and undervalued. Putting employers at the heart of these changes, as demonstrated through the current apprenticeship reforms and as recommended by Lord Sainsbury’s independent report, we can provide a clear route to employment for our young people. The changes in the Bill will support the achievements of those young people from difficult backgrounds, such as those with special educational needs or disability. In response to what my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said earlier, we are doing a lot to implement the Maynard reforms, we are spending £2 million to help apprentices with mental health difficulties, and we announced over Christmas that apprentices with severe hearing problems will be able to do sign language instead of English as a functional skill.

We expect individuals with SEND to be over-represented on technical education routes: 23% of those who access technical education routes will have some form of special educational need compared with 7% of those taking level 3 academic qualifications, and 20% of those in the cohort as a whole.

The measures in the Bill will drive up the productivity of our country, turning us into an apprenticeship nation and providing the skills we need for our country to thrive. That is why the CBI has said:

“Businesses have long called for a vocational route…so today’s proposals are a real step forward.”

[David Rutley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the incredible work he has done in taking the Bill forward and I commend him for his efforts. Does he agree that one of the most important factors is engaging businesses in these apprenticeships and making the route to skills more relevant for business so that this will not only help to address the productivity challenges that he has mentioned, but improve life chances for the young people involved, too?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, whom I thank for his work on the Committee, is absolutely right. We introduced the apprenticeship levy to change behaviour and involve businesses in supporting apprenticeships, we have created the institute and the employer panels, and we are giving huge financial incentives to businesses, especially small businesses, to ensure that they hire apprentices.

The Bill also introduces an insolvency regime for the further education sector that will, in the unlikely event of a college insolvency, provide clear-cut protections for learners to minimise disruption to their studies as far as possible, while offering certainty to creditors. During oral evidence, we heard from representatives of the Association of Colleges, Collab and others, who supported the insolvency regime and the protections that it includes for learners. Although there were issues about which the banks had questions, many spoke in support of the clarity provided by the proposed measures. Santander told us that it was keen to lend more to the further education sector, and said:

“On the Bill and the proposed insolvency regime, we are actually supportive of the clarity that they provide.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 38, Q41.]

Technical and Further Education Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between David Rutley and Robert Halfon

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Robert Halfon]

I will start with new clause 4 and then go on to the other provisions before answering the general queries of the hon. Member for Blackpool South.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Batley and Spen on a really important contribution to the debate; I mean that genuinely. She knows from the brief conversation we had that I completely agree with much of what she says. I agree that we have a problem with careers in our country. I agree that for so long, careers guidance has pushed people towards universities. Having said that, I can imagine a lot of things, but I could never imagine the hon. Member for Luton North as a banker—I have a broad mind, but it is not that broad.

One reason why we have those problems is that wherever I go around the country, whatever institutes I visit and whatever kids I speak to, it is exactly the same: the chances are, they will not have been given advice on apprenticeships or technical education. It is university, university, university. We need to change that. I would be pleased to have the hon. Lady’s input. Careers guidance used to be fragmented and covered by two Departments, but we have moved it wholly to the Department for Education.

When I was appointed Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, I realised that the title should have been Minister for apprenticeships, skills and careers guidance because careers guidance is perhaps the most important part of everything we are trying to achieve in the Bill. It is the first rung on the ladder of opportunity because without the right careers guidance we will not succeed in what we want to do. That goes back to the arguments of the hon. Member for Luton North on prestige and other things.

The hon. Lady said—this is important—that we need more than just warm words. I accept that and I am looking at the whole issue from the beginning: what we can do in careers guidance, whether it is possible to gear it much more towards skills and starting not in secondary school, but primary school and going all the way through. To be fair, the Government have done substantive work. First, it is now a legislative requirement that schools must give careers advice on apprenticeships. With reference to what the hon. Member for Luton North said, we have also tightened up in legislation the definition of “apprenticeship”.

When I spoke at an hotel recently, I asked someone whether they realised they would be paying the levy and whether they were going to have apprentices. The reply was, “We’ve already got some in the kitchen.” When I said, “You already have apprentices?” they replied, “No, they are interns, or whatever.” We have changed the definition to make sure that an apprenticeship is what it says on the tin.

We have also created the Careers & Enterprise Company, to which the hon. Member for Luton North kindly referred, and again I have been around the country to see it working in practice. I have been to east London and the north-east. Of course there is much more to do. Some £90 million, which is a serious amount of money and not just warm words, is being invested over the Parliament not just in the Careers & Enterprise Company, but in careers generally: 1,190 enterprise advisers and 78 enterprise co-ordinators. They have connected 900 schools in about 37 of the 38 local enterprise partnerships, the whole purpose being to build careers links with students and to get them to do work experience.

There is a £5 million careers and enterprise fund to boost provision for nearly 250,000 young people across England in 75% of the areas the Careers & Enterprise Company identified as cold spots. There is a £12 million mentoring fund, because mentoring is incredibly important. This year, £75 million is being spent on the National Careers Service to help its work and £24 million on web kits to support more than 650 people with face-to-face advice. We have started the work.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is setting out some important things the Government are doing and no doubt he will explain what more is to be done. Does he agree with Lord Heseltine who said recently in a Select Committee that industrial policy for the benefit of the country starts in primary school classes if we are to achieve the productivity gains we want?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I was in a primary school—it might have been in the constituency of the hon. Member for Blackpool South—where the kids had to guess the career of the individuals there. They included a fire officer, a business person and a pilot, who then went out and returned with their uniforms on. Careers guidance must start in school. We will not achieve what we want unless it starts in primary schools.

I am looking at the matter and there are substantive funds, but we must change the whole argument and gear careers advice towards skills and apprenticeships, although we have no problem with people going to university. I have held roundtables, not just with the great and the good, but with people from up and down the country, to get ideas for how to form our careers strategy. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen is very welcome to take part in them when they carry on next year.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between David Rutley and Robert Halfon

Money resolution: House of Commons & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to put it on the record that it was I who was speaking from a sedentary position. The Minister is indeed at the vanguard, but the only other discernible member of the Government is the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is standing behind the Speaker’s Chair.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

May I make a quick point? As the debate has highlighted today, it is quality, not quantity, that counts.

[David Rutley]

Indeed.

The Bill is timely. After strenuous efforts to stabilise the economy following the financial crisis, the UK faces a new opportunity—and some challenges—in Brexit. If we are to make a success of leaving the EU, it is increasingly urgent that we tackle our long-standing productivity gap compared with other leading economies. The challenge is to upskill the existing and future British workforce. It is interesting that the Chartered Management Institute says that one in four jobs was left vacant in 2015, owing to skills shortages.