Higher Education: Financial Pressures

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests and, in particular, my work with Dudley College and the Warwick Manufacturing Group. I also thank my noble friend Lord Knight not just for calling this debate but for the huge contribution he makes, and has made for years, to improving education in the UK.

I want to make the case I have been making for years, which is that we have to make education and skills, at all levels, the UK’s number one priority. Improving education is the answer to our country’s biggest challenges, as it brings new investment, new industries and good, well-paid jobs to areas that have lost traditional industries. It tackles poverty and improves social mobility, builds a stronger economy and boosts productivity. It not only enables young people to lead more fulfilled and prosperous lives but reduces the costs of inequality and poverty on the NHS, on housing and on benefits.

Young people today will work with technologies that have not yet been invented and have jobs not yet imagined. The old days when you learned skills to equip you for a job for life have gone for good. Instead, the pace of change will get quicker and quicker, so young people must learn how to adapt, how to learn and how to acquire new skills. This is why investing in education and skills is the most important investment any of us can make as individuals, communities, the Government or the country as a whole.

At the outset, I want to lay to rest the idea that we send too many young people to university. If I may so, it is total nonsense. For the people who say this, if I may say this as well, it is never their children or young people from their community who they think should not be going to university. When they say it they are talking about young people in places like the Black Country.

There are communities that have routinely sent more than half their young people to university for years. There are schools, families and communities where going to university is, and has been for decades, the normal, expected thing to do. Then there are towns across the country that have no university campus, where school standards have not been good enough and which have sent a small minority of young people to university. Yet these are the places that most need higher skills, and the new industries and jobs that those skills can attract. The truth is that we need to ensure standards at school improve, that more young people stay on and go to college and sixth form, to apprenticeships or to university. We need to do all these things to equip our country for the challenges of the modern economy.

The point I want to focus on is the contribution that universities make to their local communities. You only have to get off the train at Cambridge to be stunned at the level of investment that its link to science, education and research has made in that city. If you go to Coventry and Warwickshire, you will see industries, companies and jobs that have resulted from the world-beating partnerships between academia and industry at the Warwick Manufacturing Group. Then you travel 30 miles up to the road to the Black Country, which has struggled to replace jobs lost in traditional industries over the last 40 or 50 years.

This is the approach we have adopted in Dudley, with a brand new £100 million town centre campus, which includes a new institute of technology and plans for a university centre focused on healthcare technologies. We are making education the borough’s number one priority, to strengthen the local economy. But one of the challenges that towns in the Midlands and the north that have lost traditional industries face is that they often have no university to boost skills and drive growth.

For example, the Black Country is an area of four boroughs and 1.1 million people, but just one local university, the University of Wolverhampton. As I will explain, like other modern new universities, the University of Wolverhampton does a brilliant job of serving local people, but the boroughs in the area are some of the largest places in the country with no university campuses. The region as a whole has less higher education provision than other areas, which is one of the reasons why we have higher levels of unemployment.

This is why, where we once built communities around factories, we must now build them around universities and colleges. That is why universities like the University of Wolverhampton need more support from the Government and must be able to attract and teach more students. Look at the facts: research in 2019 showed that the university, its students and their visitors—as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said earlier—supported nearly 4,000 jobs locally, while MillionPlus’s report last year, Staying Local to Go Far, showed it contributes almost £200 million to the local economy and that modern universities generate £1.17 billion in the wider West Midlands.

More than eight out of 10 of Wolverhampton’s 21,000 students come from within 25 miles. One in every three undergraduates is on subjects allied to medicine, training to become nurses and health professionals. Almost nine out of 10 of the graduates from the most recent cohort were in work or further study, according to the latest Graduate Outcomes report, and six out of 10 UK students went on to highly skilled rates. Compared with other universities, more of Wolverhampton’s students not only are recruited locally, as I said, but remain in the local area, contributing to the local economy and driving its improvement after graduation too.

Wolverhampton is not unique in this regard. Lots of the modern universities are like this and have a high proportion of students from poorer backgrounds, who have been in care or on free school meals, who are from families that have not sent other people to university or are from neighbourhoods with fewer students and graduates. Universities such as Wolverhampton—all of these modern universities—are critical to the Government’s levelling-up ambitions, to tackling poverty and to building a stronger economy. They are critical for the important role they still play in working collaboratively with local stakeholders, such as the NHS, businesses and local government, to drive regional development and strengthen the social fabric of the cities and towns in which they are located. It is vital that the Government ensure that universities and communities such as these, in the towns of the Midlands and the north that have lost their traditional industries and which desperately need to attract new investment and new jobs, receive more support. This is not just important for them but vital for the country as a whole.

School (Reform of Pupil Selection) Bill [HL]

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue.

The central point I want to make today is that we have to make education, and improving standards in education for all young people, our country’s number one priority. In a world in which technology and skills are crucial but in which we are finding it harder and harder to compete, there can be no more important issue. Improving education would enable us to tackle all sorts of issues. It would not just help young people to lead more prosperous and fulfilled lives but strengthen the economy, help us to tackle the deficit, bring new investment and better jobs to towns that have lost traditional industries and reduce the costs of inequality and poverty on the NHS, housing and benefits.

Unfortunately, when it comes to literacy and numeracy, we are lagging behind our competitors. It is not just countries such as China and South Korea; we are struggling even to compete with post-communist nations—Estonia, Poland and Slovenia. For decades, Germany has provided many more apprenticeships and had much better technical education.

Let us look at the challenges in education: so many working-class pupils, particularly white, working-class boys, leaving school without even basic qualifications; decades of not taking technical education seriously enough or providing enough apprenticeships; and a teacher recruitment crisis. Look at yesterday’s scandalous figures showing the plummeting number of young people going into teacher training. Look at the catastrophe of Covid for children from poor or overcrowded homes or those with special needs.

Given all that, who would say, as the Minister for School Standards appointed in September did—thankfully, he is no longer in office—that their “biggest fear of all” in education is the abolition of charitable status for private schools? Whatever you think of the idea, who would say it is the biggest problem in education?

Likewise, given the scale and urgency of the task of improving education for all young people, I am not sure that abolishing selection should be the top priority for an incoming Labour Government. I understand the objections set out to selection at 11, of course, but the Explanatory Notes say the Bill would also prevent schools with sixth forms from selecting pupils for A-levels. What about the BRIT School, which does a very good job on performing and creative arts? What would be the impact on other specialist schools?

Whether we like it or not, selection is a major feature of our education system, whether it is a few state schools, private fee-paying schools or parents buying a home near the best state schools. The question is not whether selection takes place but who gets to choose and on what basis.

According to the Sutton Trust, only 7% of pupils attend independent schools but they produce seven out of 10 High Court judges, more than half our leading journalists and doctors and more than a third of our MPs. Five public schools send more pupils to Oxbridge than 2,000 state schools—two-thirds of the entire sector.

Look what happened in Covid: every independent school I know provided a full timetable on Zoom from day one. I do not begrudge them that at all. Spending money on education for young people, either as a parent or as society as a whole, is the best investment possible, but I do not know a single state school—comprehensive, selective or otherwise—where that happened. Children from poor or overcrowded homes were hit worst of all, so the gulf between poor children and the rest—already a scandal, and greater in the UK than anywhere else—gets bigger than ever.

Instead of abolishing selection, we should look to open up elite private schools to all pupils on the basis of ability, which is what the Sutton Trust proposes. That would open access to leading independent schools by selecting pupils for all places purely on merit, with parents paying a sliding scale of fees according to their means. When this was piloted in Liverpool, open access saw academic standards improve and the social mix of schools become more diverse, with 30% of pupils on free school places and 40% paying partial fees. Top independent schools are prepared to take part in trailblazer programmes on this, benefiting thousands of pupils every year whose parents could not afford fees. Extending that to 100 or more leading—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The noble Lord is making his case, but the school in which it was piloted in Liverpool, the Belvedere School, has since joined the state system as a state academy and does not have selective admissions or fees any more. Might there not be a lesson from this that if more of these elite private schools joined the state system, access to them would be much more open than with them charging fees of £15,000, £20,000, £25,000, £30,000, £35,000, £40,000 or £45,000 a year?

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I am afraid that my hearing aid meant I missed the first part of the noble Lord’s question, but I got the gist of it. I think the answer is that there is not much chance of that happening, but there is a chance that they are prepared to join the Sutton Trust programme. That would have a dramatic effect on the diversity of these schools and the opportunities open to young people from poorer homes.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned Belvedere, but there is also the independent selective school Liverpool College, which is now an academy with no selection; and St Edward’s College, which was a selective independent school, is now an academy. The results are better than when they were grammar schools.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

That is fantastic to hear, of course. Can I seek some guidance? Do I get a bit longer after the interventions? Does it work like in the Commons, where we get more?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, given that there have been a couple of interventions, a minute longer.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I am very grateful for that. My other point is to ask why the Government cannot increase choice and competition by allowing popular and oversubscribed schools with consistently good results, strong governance and sound finances to provide more places. The problem at the moment is that funding follows the pupils. Oversubscribed schools cannot provide places to accommodate more pupils. Allowing them to provide the facilities first and then pay back the cost of expanding the facilities through the money that the additional pupils generate would deal with that problem.

I am very grateful for the extra time I have been given. I will not read the rest of my speech, but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, writing notes to reply to a debate on the hoof when you are also listening to speeches is tricky, and something that clearly I must develop more fully. I thank all noble Lords who have engaged in this debate. Like my noble friend Lord Watson, I genuinely believe that this is a Bill whose time has come. Many people have long campaigned over the issue of selection, which, as noble Lords will recall from my opening speech, I choose to refer to as “rejection of the many”. We have done that because we genuinely believe that the comprehensive principle is the right one. Recent publicity has shown that even many years after the experience of failing the 11-plus people still feel damaged by it. The testimony given by my noble friend Lord Hendy indicates that even people who are supremely successful—as the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, KC obviously is—have that feeling within them that somehow or other there was a point at which they were not quite good enough.

I note that the contributions on the Bill have come from all sides of your Lordships’ House. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for expressing the view that her education would have been poorer had it been in a school that had a grammar school profile. That was a significant contribution, and it speaks to how the social integration, rather than social segregation, in comprehensive schools is deeply felt by a lot of people and very important to them. I say to her that I will do a lot more work on micro-geography, which is a really interesting issue.

I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Watson’s preference for the expression “social justice” rather than “social mobility”. If noble Lords take anything away from this debate, they might take away his remark that no child should be “required to earn a place” at secondary school. The fact is that children have a right to be educated to secondary level.

Social class, whether it is described as that or as being disadvantaged, less wealthy or other things, has run through this debate. Clearly there is an issue here about the fact that some families have much greater resources than others, which means that they have privileged access in different ways. For me, this is a significant issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned the inequality wrought in society by the very fact of the existence of grammar schools. Quite a lot has been written about the fact that, if you achieve a grammar school place, you are likely, certainly at some stages of your life, to have a more successful career. Frankly, we do not think that this is the proper way for the education system to be organised.

My noble friend Lord Davies referenced the Time’s Up for the Test campaign that was launched last evening, in a piece of extraordinarily brilliant coincidental timing, since that meeting was arranged before any of us knew that Second Reading would happen today. I was not present, but I understand that it was very successful and gave an opportunity to discuss these issues outside this Chamber. It demonstrates that, although people are able to assert—because they feel they can—that grammar schools are popular, there is also the much less discussed fact that grammar schools are not popular with a whole range of people. I am pleased about that timing and that he talked about one of the aspects of education being how we learn to live together. We do so with a much narrower group of people if we are in a grammar school than if we are in a comprehensive school.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, made a great speech; I am glad that he was able to stay in the Chamber long enough to make it. He referred to the hospital analogy, also referred to by my noble friend Lord Hunt—this is an apt and well-made point.

The devastation of many children and families at failing the 11-plus was described by many speakers, particularly my noble friend Lord Hunt. Noble Lords probably underestimate how serious this is.

I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Austin, brought some perspectives to this that meant that it actually was a debate, and I would be happy to discuss this further with him. I realise that it is absolutely true that there is a lot to do in education. I simply feel that this step can be taken now; it is a good step, and it would improve our education system.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

If the noble Baroness thinks that this should be the priority for an incoming Labour Government above all the other problems the education system is facing, why does she think the last Labour Government—several speakers in this debate, including me, were Ministers in it, and one was the Schools Minister—did nothing about this in 13 years?

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Since I was not in the Government, I cannot tell the noble Lord what their thinking was. Sometimes the priorities of parties in government are not the right ones. I believe this would be an important priority for any incoming Labour Government to take on. My—

Schools: Resources

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The number of children who are in receipt of free school meals is at the highest level it has ever been—37% of the school population.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, education ought to be the country’s number one priority, so school budgets should be the very last place the Government look to make savings, particularly after children had such a terrible time during the pandemic. I do not know a single state school that continued to provide a full timetable during lockdown. Children from poor or overcrowded homes, or those with special needs, will find their lives blighted for ever. The Government need to do much more to sort this out.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not entirely clear what the noble Lord’s question was. The Government do work very closely with schools to support them to do this. The balance that we need to strike is to make sure that schools are using funding as efficiently as possible, and we need to understand the pressures under which they operate.

Schools: Examination Assessments

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord has been a champion of summer-born children, and I understand that he is one himself. As I am a winter-born child, obviously we might not see eye to eye on this. But we have had to take into account multiple elements in thinking about the adaptations for this summer, and we have tried to reach the fairest possible point in both adaptations to the system and in grading.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, given all the problems caused by the pandemic, is this not the moment to have a proper review of what children need to learn, how they should be taught it and how they should be assessed? Despite the Minister’s previous answer, there is a case for looking at the need for exams at 16 when young people are remaining in education until they are 18. Should we not specialise at 14, with proper, serious technical and vocational education, as well as more academic subjects for those who want to pursue them, and how should we change the curriculum to take into account new technologies and new ways of learning?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that we are planning a White Paper on many of these areas, but our priority in the short term—I am sure the House would support this—is on recovery and catch-up for all children, particularly those who have been most impacted in their learning by the pandemic.