Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating Mark Jenkinson, the Member of Parliament for Workington, for introducing this Bill. I know him well because in his constituency there is a university technical college on the north-west coast near Sellafield, which is now the most successful school in Cumbria. It is probably the most successful school in the north of England, as 70% of last year’s school leavers became apprentices and the rest went on to university or got a local job. The college has been outstanding. He knows how important it is for children to be given an alternative to the very narrow academic education, with the eight academic subjects that they now have in schools. Children have to be aware that there is another world out there with a lot of opportunities.

I am afraid that this debate could not happen in Russia because we have not come here as a servile body to lavish praise on the Government and to say how wonderfully they have done on career guidance over the last 10 years. The record has been dismal and bleak. Why do I say that? It is not a casual, careless argument. In 2010, when the Conservatives became responsible for education, there were more than 100,000 apprentices aged under 19. In 2020, it had fallen to just over 50,000. That is failure, not success.

I draw the attention of the Minister to the excellent report from the Select Committee on Youth Unemployment, chaired excellently by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Figure 21 in the report shows the number of apprenticeships over the last 10 years; it shows that, as I have just said, there were 100,000 apprenticeships falling to lower than 50,000.

We were also very concerned in our report about how to improve the information going to disadvantaged children. Children who live in the leafy suburbs with grammars schools do not require that sort of guidance but children who live in disadvantaged areas and are now restricted by this very narrow academic curriculum need advice, guidance and help.

We were very disturbed to find that in many disadvantaged areas there were very high levels of youth unemployment. The general level of youth unemployment among NEETs is about 9%. We analysed youth unemployment in various boroughs in the West Midlands. I refer the Minister to figure 22 in the report—not immediately, but later. The general level of youth unemployment is 9%, but we found that in Sandwell, it was 20%, in Wolverhampton it was 19%, and in Stoke and Birmingham it was 18%. In those areas, knowledge of alternative study and changes in career prospects are just not getting through, quite frankly.

I now come to the Baker clause. I do not talk about a Baker clause on the grounds of vanity or reputation. When you are 87, vanity and reputation are really all in the past. I introduced the Baker clause only in order to get a good message over to youngsters in schools of the alternatives available to them apart from eight narrow academic subjects. I persuaded the Government three years ago. Unfortunately, they decided to do the drafting themselves and did not make it workable.

I suggested that they ought to make a duty on schools to have a meeting to explain—first to the 12 and 13 year-olds, then to the 14 and 16 year-olds and then to the 16 and 18 year-olds—all the alternative provision that is available from, for example, apprenticeship providers, FE colleges, independent sixth-form colleges that have very practical A-levels and not the academic ones, and university technical colleges.

They said that the Minister would issue advice and the schools would follow. The Minister issued advice and nothing happened at all. When we approached the schools they said that they were sorry, they could not arrange the meeting, they were too busy or could only have a meeting one Friday afternoon in July and things like that. It has been completely inoperable for the last three years. The Government have done nothing about it until now. They said they were going to consult on it. You do not need to consult on a really simple subject like that. You just have to make up your mind and act.

When UTCs applied to schools to go in and talk to their students, we were fobbed off. We were told not to appear. When we complained to the Government, again they did nothing. They did not approach the schools; they did not reproach the schools and tell them anything—they did nothing. They said they would go out to consultation. You do not need consultation on a simple subject like this.

Now, we will have the debate on the Baker clause when the amendment comes back in the next fortnight or so to this House. Again, I suggest to the Government that they have got it wrong. What they are saying now is that all the schools have to do is to produce one meeting. I am conscious of the time, but time is not a problem; people are not speaking and no one has spoken for five minutes so far, so the Whip may relax.

The current clause says that only one meeting should take place in each of the three years. On the evidence, I want three meetings, but it is being said that everyone would have to have nine meetings. That is completely wrong—it is false news. I want three meetings, with 12 to 13 year-olds, 14 to 16 year-olds and 16 to 18 year-olds. We will debate that later.

I will briefly quote some things from our report. We listened and talked to lots of unemployed people in the north-west, Nottingham and London. A young person said,

“when I was in school in Year 11 apprenticeships were not really spoken about, I didn’t know anything about them. Even now I don’t really hear a lot about them. I only first heard about them at the time I applied for one”.

This is the ignorance that children have when they leave school today. It is very evident in our report.

We also recommend that Ofsted should not give “outstanding” to any school that does not have a proper career advice policy and implementation. These are the sorts of recommendations that I hope the Minister will warmly support when she answers our report, otherwise we will just sink backwards. We must make progress in this area and not depend on the failure of the past.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it is rather daunting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who has been described today as the don in this field of career education by someone on his own side. I have not disagreed with him much on this subject and I do not think I did at all today. He says he does not care about reputation, at the age of 87; I think we will use his reputation when he reaches 88 and 89 to try to put some pressure on the Government on this.

The Bill is a good but small thing. It takes a step forward and deals with some of the historical anomalies and oddities of academies that we are constantly dealing with. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, is absolutely right about the attitude, “We cannot do this because it is an academy”—but this is supposed to be a universal education system. We go back and forth on this all the time, and a Bill that at least sets that precedent—regardless of its primary purpose—is taking a step forward. Mark Jenkinson, who is watching us very astutely from just outside the Bar, may have set a precedent he did not look to set.

On making sure that there is more advice on careers guidance, I am struck by one thing: you really cannot start talking about this early enough. The term “careers guidance” might not be right for primary schools—“lifestyle choices” might be better—but I am reminded of what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said about conservative changes: if something is already there, at least people will have a rough idea of what you are saying. We can spend our entire lives reinventing the wheel; if we want to make some small changes, we might get a term that we know and then slightly adapt it. Stereotype-breaking is essential, to make sure that people actually know what is going on.

This is a very odd time; now, we have to get people not just to aspire higher but to think laterally. The level 4 and 5 executive shortage in our country, which was probably done no favours by saying that everybody should go to university to get to level 6, so they then have to de-skill in certain subjects, has been going on for decades and has been made slightly worse. We must think differently. That means we need informed people not only giving information but interpreting it. Those who made that point were right—“Here is a list of facts; read down the list”, but what do the facts mean? What are the options? What steps do I take, and what support is there to enable me to take them?

I had a nagging suspicion that I would end up agreeing with everybody; I discern that I will clearly have to read my noble friend Lord Shipley’s report, and not just the executive summary. I am not sure I should thank him for that.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

We have made it very simple to read by having lots of illustrations. There are about 30 illustrations, which is very unusual for a Select Committee report, because we thought that now people—particularly with all the government press conferences—look at charts and understand the issues very quickly. It will not be too demanding for the noble Lord to look at the pictures.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

We must also remember that providers are one important element within the wider careers framework, the Gatsby benchmarks of good careers guidance. We expect schools to provide a wide range of careers activities, including curriculum learning linked to careers, employer encounters, experiences of the workplace and personal guidance, to support pupils to make fully informed choices. I beg to move.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 35A, which is in my name and those of others. Before explaining its purpose, I say to the Minister that the whole House appreciates how difficult it is to take over a Bill three-quarters of the way through. This is a very complicated and difficult Bill that requires a great deal of educational knowledge, and she has measured up to that enormously—it must have taken a lot of midnight oil. I thank her very much.

The purpose of these two amendments is exactly the same: to make the Baker clause workable. I drafted the Baker clause four years ago in order to improve careers guidance because I wanted students to leave school at 18 knowing about apprenticeships and about what FE colleges, independent sixth form colleges, private providers and UTCs do. Quite frankly, heads do not tell their students very much, because, for every student who goes, they lose between £5,000 and £6,000. They even keep in their schools students whom they individually believe would be better in other education training. That is the position.

When John Nash, who was then a Minister, agreed it, I was told that he would tidy up my drafting, and I thanked him for that. I begged the department to make it a legal duty for schools to hold these meetings, because heads will not be keen to—they will try to avoid them. I was told that that would be met by ministerial guidance when the Bill was on the statute book. Ministerial guidance was issued, but it was largely ignored.

When we approached schools and UTCs locally—some of them never replied—we were told that they were too busy to do this and that they could not do it. They also fobbed it off and said, “You can have a meeting in late June or July, after the exams”, when the schools are half empty. They did not even realise that, if you cannot have these meetings before 28 February each year, they are useless because, on that day, school lists close for the September of that year. So I was not very impressed with that.

As I said, when the Bill was enacted, the ministerial advice was totally ignored, so the Baker clause has not been operable for three years. The Government have now provided a way of making it operable. I do not think that this will be as effective as the new clause that I have written for two reasons. First, secondary legislation will delay the actual implementation, probably for weeks or months, quite frankly. They have to go through consultation. As we know, secondary legislation is, in many cases, never debated, but when it is, it cannot be amended. It is really a measure of government by decree rather than debate, and that is inappropriate. My proposed new clause would mean that this would come into effect on the day that the Bill receives its Third Reading in the House of Commons—much earlier than under the Government’s amendment.

The government amendment is quite defective when it says that there should be one meeting in the school. The point is that there will be three phases or times— 13 to 14, 15 to 16, and 18—when providers can go in to approach the children. But they say that there should be “at least one” meeting, which means that, if an FE school gets in first—say, on 30 November—the duty of one meeting has been met and all the others can be turned down. That is totally inappropriate. My amendment says that there should be up to three meetings—I do not think that we should disrupt schools more than that. They would not be for a full day; they would be for two or three hours each, and perhaps two or three providers could speak. That is basically what my amendment says.

The other deficiency in the Government’s amendment is that it does not mention, as my amendment does, the information which providers have to provide. That is in my proposed new subsection (2A)(b) and it includes

“(i) information about the provider and the approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships that the provider offers … (ii) information about the careers to which those technical education qualifications or apprenticeships might lead … (iii) a description of what learning or training with the provider is like, and … (iv) responses to questions from the pupils about the provider or technical education qualifications and apprenticeships”.

So my amendment sets out clearly what the providers have to do when they go in. I am afraid that the government amendment depends on secondary legislation, which, as I have said, cannot be debated or amended in this House, and it would delay the introduction of the Bill. My amendment is a much more effective way of doing it.

When I asked the department to say that UTCs would definitely be included among providers, it said, “Well, we cannot give you that complete guarantee.” That is a great mistake, because UTCs have the best record in respect of students leaving who do not become unemployed. That is what we are very proud of. The average level of student leavers not in education, employment or training, or NEETs, is 9.3%; we are 3%. Last year, four university technical colleges had no NEETs at all: in Hull, Portsmouth, Aston in Birmingham and Sellafield’s UTC on the north-west coast. Students in schools should know that and know that they have very good career prospects by going to university technical colleges.

I have set out why I think my amendment is more effective. It would definitely come in earlier than the Government’s, probably by months, so I commend it to the House. When the time comes, I shall seek to test the opinion of the House.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, in the choice between the Minister’s amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, we are faced with action versus less action. Lloyd George famously said, “When traversing a chasm, it is desirable to do so in one leap.” I cannot think of any good reason why the House would not go for the serious action rather than the lesser action.

We are supposed to be agreed on the objective, which is that more young people should have the opportunity to engage in technical, vocational and apprenticeship routes which are suitable to them. It is very difficult to engage in those routes if you do not know about them. We are talking about schoolchildren who for the most part are not aware of those routes; they are in schools which have an academic curriculum. It is a big problem going back to the Education Act 1944, which, alas, we seem to have been incapable of putting right over the course of 50 years, that we have an unfit-for-purpose education system so far as vocational and technical education is concerned and pathways through to apprenticeships which are still largely non-existent. We are trying to put this right, and there is a broad consensus in the House that it should be put right—the problem is that the Government have produced a mouse instead of a Bill. I am afraid that this Bill is largely a placeholder put in the space marked “technical education, apprenticeships, levelling up”—we know that the Prime Minister thinks that levelling up is part of his core mission, so he has to have something which occupies that space—but it does not have a policy in it that will match the objectives.

The Minister should be prepared simply to accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, since it is technically possible, and it would lead to a big difference in the exposure of school-age children to technical education options. It should happen, and the fact that it is not going to happen, and it appears that we are going to have vote on it in 15 or 20 minutes, is because the Government are half-hearted, inconsistent and largely AWOL on whether we are actually going to move and start transforming provision in our schools and our educational system relative to technical education. I hope that the noble Lord’s amendment is put to the vote and carried, and maybe, on the rebound, when hopefully they are faced with a large majority, the Government will accept it.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think trying to do mental arithmetic at the Dispatch Box is risky, but, as I read it, it is three times three because of the first, second and third key phases. Maybe we both need to go to numeracy boot camp, but I think three threes are nine —or at least they were when I was at school, which admittedly was a very long time ago. I believe the correct figure is nine, because the amendment specifies the first, second and third phase of education and three encounters in each phase.

I therefore hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all the Peers who have spoken, and I am glad to see I have some support—

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Palmer of Childs Hill) (LD)]

No, we are dealing first with Amendment 35.

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Moved by

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

35A: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause—
“Amendments to section 42B of the Education Act 1997
(1) Section 42B of the Education Act 1997 is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (1) insert—“(1A) In complying with subsection (1), the proprietor must give a representative range of education and training providers (including, where reasonably practicable, a university technical college) access to registered pupils on at least three occasions during each of the first, second and third key phase of their education.”(3) After subsection (2) insert—“(2A) The proprietor of a school in England within subsection (2) must—(a) ensure that each registered pupil meets, during both the first and second key phase of their education, with a representative range of education and training providers to whom access is given, and(b) ask providers to whom access is given to provide information that includes the following—(i) information about the provider and the approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships that the provider offers,(ii) information about the careers to which those technical education qualifications or apprenticeships might lead,(iii) a description of what learning or training with the provider is like, and(iv) responses to questions from the pupils about the provider or technical education qualifications and apprenticeships.(2B) Access given under subsection (1) must be for a reasonable period of time during the standard school day.”(4) After subsection (5)(a), insert—“(aa) a requirement to provide access to a representative range of education and training providers to include where practicable a university technical college;”(5) In subsection (5)(c), after “access” insert “and the times at which the access is to be given;”(6) After subsection (5)(c), insert—“(d) an explanation of how the proprietor proposes to comply with the obligations imposed under subsection (2A).”(7) After subsection (9), insert—“(9A) For the purposes of this section—(a) the first key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 13, and(ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year;(b) the second key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 15, and (ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year;(c) the third key phase of a pupil’s education is the period—(i) beginning at the same time as the school year in which the majority of pupils in the pupil’s class attain the age of 17, and(ii) ending with 28 February in the following school year.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment will ensure that Section 2 of the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, commonly known as the Baker Clause, is legally enforceable.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I am glad we have got that little bit right. I first thank all the Peers who have spoken, including some Conservatives, in support of my amendment.

As regards the number of days, I make it absolutely clear that there should be three meetings. These meetings will not last for the full day; they will last for two or three hours at the very most, with maybe two providers coming in. There would be meetings at ages 13 to 14, 14 to 16 and 16 to 18. That is not what the government amendment says—it says that they will have “at least one”. The legal advice I have is from Mr Stephen Ravenscroft, who is well known to the department because he is the leading figure on educational law, but I managed to get at him first before the department. He has given me a very clear legal position on this: the point about “at least one” is that if a provider gets in first, the others do not have a right to be heard. The school can say, “We have had at least one meeting”, so I think my amendment is actually stronger than the Government’s.

I seek to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I am genuinely concerned that we have a fundamental understanding of the number of encounters that the two amendments seek to deliver. The government amendment says that

“the proprietor must give access to registered pupils on at least one occasion during each of”—

that is, every time; those are my words, not the amendment’s—

“the first, second and third key phase of their education.”

So there would be three mandatory encounters. The following part of our amendment says that, during each of these phases,

“The proprietor of a school … must … ensure that each registered pupil meets … at least one provider”,


so, with the greatest respect to my noble friend, a single provider is not sufficient. That is what our amendment says, so I would just like to make that point clear.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I would like to seek the opinion of the House.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have engaged on Report, and I gather that I have to speak to the various amendments I have supported. I certainly strongly support the one that has just been dealt with, and I will also speak to Amendments 30 and 31.

That amendment would delay the whole implementation of the Bill by four years. I will explain why that is necessary. The Bill is one of the most extraordinary Bills that has been laid before Parliament because it has no policy in it. It sets up two administrative procedures, one to deal with a statement that appeared in the White Paper on education and one to deal with a paper that appeared out of the blue on 1 January this year, on abolishing thousands of technical qualifications, which was totally unexpected. The Bill sets up a framework.

As regards the White Paper qualification, a framework of employer representative bodies was set up to prepare skill plans for each of the towns where the employers live, which is a very interesting idea. It is a bit experimental, but it means that local industry could get involved in setting the curriculum for Darlington, Newcastle, Plymouth or Exeter, and that is a good thing. It engages industry, which determines what technical subjects it needs. The various bodies that do the training, like the FE colleges, the apprenticeship providers, the private providers and the colleges that I support, such as the technical colleges, can then adjust their curricula accordingly.

The second policy that is not in the Bill appeared on 1 January this year, when the Government issued a paper on technical qualifications. This was totally unexpected: there has been nothing in a White Paper and no research on it—I am very interested to know what they will do—but they set out their policy.

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[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

It can get worse, you know.

I am quoting from the documents so that they are on the record, so that when MPs see it they know I am not making this up. This is real stuff. Listen to this:

“We have recognised the need for additional qualifications alongside A levels and T Levels, including small qualifications designed to be taken as part of a study programme including A levels. However, we recognise that students who traditionally take”


things such as diplomas, two BTECs or extended diplomas

“tend to have achieved lower GCSE grades than their peers who progress onto A level study. They are also more likely to be Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students, have SEND and have received free school meals.”

So the Government admit in this impact document that one of the consequences of this is that the following people will suffer: black, Asian and minority ethnic students, those with SEND and those who have received free meals. They will not actually have much of a chance of going to university. This is a disgraceful and shaming statement to put into any public document.

It gets worse: those from

“Asian and black ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be affected by the proposals, as they are particularly strongly represented on qualifications expected to no longer be available in the future.”

It then does disabled students and disability, with

“these students being more strongly negatively impacted by being unable to achieve level 3 in the reformed landscape.”

So disabled students are going to be disadvantaged in this reformed landscape. Scrap the blasted landscape! It is absolutely disgusting. Quite frankly, I am very ashamed that a Conservative Government have done this. What they are denying to lots of people—black, Asian, ethnic minority, disadvantaged and disabled students—is hope and aspiration.

The Conservative Party at the moment has been accused of abandoning lots of the things it has traditionally lived by. One of the things it has lived by is improvement in education. With respect to my own family, my grandfather left school at 12, and my father left elementary school at 16 and studied all sorts of other things to get on, leave and eventually become a senior civil servant. That is what Conservatives believe in—hope and aspiration—yet this denies hope and aspiration. As Browning said, the reach should exceed the grasp,

“Or what’s a heaven for?”

They are denied that reach. This is a shaming thing. I am very ashamed that a Conservative Government could do it, and all I can say to your Lordships is that I apologise for the Government.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I was going to say it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, but actually it is an extremely daunting task after that magnificent speech.

I shall speak to my Amendment 32 and add my support to Amendments 27, 28 and 33, to which I have added my name. But I support all the amendments in this group, which, as has been so powerfully set out by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, address a key concern over the Government’s policies on technical—or can I still say vocational?—qualifications.

I remind the House of my interests as a vice-president of City & Guilds, an organisation for which I worked for 20 years on practical, work-based technical and craft qualifications. BTEC broke away from City & Guilds in the 1970s, originally separating the business from the technical as BEC and TEC, but then coming together to offer both types of qualifications, particularly but not exclusively for secondary schools and further education colleges. Over nearly half a century, BTEC has built a reputation which is recognised, understood and valued—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, respected—by candidates, employers and academia.

It would be an act of extreme folly and damage for the Government to undermine, let alone cease to fund, a set of qualifications which have had a profound influence on the work skills of the country, especially, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, pointed out, for disadvantaged groups, and especially at a time when the country needs all the skills it can muster. We need skilled people to replace all the skilled workers which Brexit has seen return to their countries of origin. Do you know, I do not remember seeing that in the Leave campaign materials: “Vote Leave and be deprived of all the skilled workers you need.” We have shortages of farm workers, HGV drivers and butchers. My grandfather was a butcher. He had no problems in those far-off days in encouraging young people into an essential and respected trade.

Successive Governments’ relentless focus on universities and academia has led to a generation believing that actually doing things is less worthy than thinking things. We must urgently work to address the academic superiority which has so beset this nation for generations.

This Government have invented T-levels. Previous Governments, academically minded, have tried to invent different sorts of vocational qualifications. We had NVQs, which were going to be the vocational qualification to end all vocational qualifications—they were brilliant. We had GNVQs, we had CPVE. I looked after CPVE for a while. It was a brilliant secondary school practical programme. It was done away with by the academic superiority, who said that it lacked intellect. We had diplomas. They were all designed to break through this country’s unwillingness actually to do and make things. T-levels are untried and untested and will pose real problems, particularly, as has been mentioned, in the work element.

In proposing those shiny new toys, the Government chose to ignore City & Guilds and BTEC, with well over a century of expertise. They need now to put their weight behind those schemes which are proven and to encourage candidates to work with colleges and employers to fulfil their potential and fill the skilled jobs which are so crucial to the country’s well-being, indeed to its survival as a 21st-century force for good.

I support all the amendments in this group. Mine insists that the institution must publish specified criteria before it can withdraw funding, or approval, from an existing qualification. That of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, insists on public consultation; that of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, promotes the combination of academic and vocational education; and that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, also calls for public consultation and the consent of employer representative bodies. On all sides of the House, we express concern that the Government’s blinkered support for their own invention threatens to undermine all that has been good and valuable in the past.

I wish the Minister well in her new post and hope that her own academic background will enable her to see just how important it is that we protect all that has been good and successful in the vocational field and support both BTEC and City & Guilds qualifications, which have been the bedrock of work-based skills for so long.

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Moved by

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

31: Clause 7, page 9, line 41, at end insert—
“(2A) But no student will be deprived of the right to take two BTECs, AGQ or a Diploma or an extended Diploma.”

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Schools: Excluded Children

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises a good point on the link-up between the Local Government Association and Ofsted. I certainly recommend that the Local Government Association write to HMCI to outline the issues that the noble Lord has raised. There should be a closer join-up. Essentially, such a school is illegal if it has more than five pupils and is teaching a full curriculum—that is the bottom line of an unregistered setting. If there are failures in the two linking up, that needs to be improved. We have announced a broader review of the whole SEND system, on which we will provide details soon.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, far too many pupils are expelled from our schools today and it is a disgrace. Teachers want to get rid of their most difficult children, particularly to improve their exam results. Should not the Government look at the whole principle of exclusion and see whether it should be more strictly monitored? The schools that I promote—university technical colleges—very rarely use exclusion. We work with disengaged and difficult children; we train them properly so that they can have a better life and get a job.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I acknowledge the great work that my noble friend is doing with UTCs, and he is right that they have attracted an excessive number of children who are more broadly off-rolled rather than excluded. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the level of exclusion has not spiked particularly; the more pernicious practice is off-rolling. In the new inspection framework that Ofsted rolled out in September, much more focus goes on to that and a school’s rating can be adversely affected if evidence of it is found.

Vocational Education and Training

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Bridgeman on initiating this debate. I have been in the House for 23 years and I can barely remember any debate on technical and vocational education. It is important, because the skills gap is large and growing. It is so large that the Government have stopped publishing it—and they have abolished the body that published it. It is very difficult to find out what the skills gap is so, as the chairman of Edge, I set up a group of 20 people to assess the skills gap in various industries. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman referred to this. The gap in engineering is 203,000; there was no A-level in engineering this year. In digital technology it is 600,000; there were just 10,000 A-levels in computing, compared to 120,000 in maths. There should be as many computing A-levels as maths ones. In hospitality, there are 100,000 vacancies; there were only five A-levels in travel and tourism.

The reason for this is that the Gove curriculum, imposed 10 years ago, is wrecking the British education system and does not respond to the needs of the British economy. EBacc is a total and utter disaster. Mr Gove’s successors never tried to challenge it; they could not say “boo” to a goose. I do not understand why the Labour and Liberal parties do not put this in their manifestos. Put some lead in your pencil and say you will abolish EBacc, for heaven’s sake, because it will absolutely destroy technical education below 16. If you do that, you will not get apprentices at 16. Who is going to employ apprentices who have only done academic subjects? No one.

When it comes to apprentices, the Government will run out of money at Christmas. All the levy has been spent and apprenticeships are falling, so they are going to have to make some difficult decisions. Perhaps I may recommend one or two. They should stop offering apprenticeships to men and women who are 40, 50 and 60 years old: 60 year-olds apply for and get apprenticeships. Apprentice grandmas and grandpas —what are they learning, how to die gracefully? For heaven’s sake, do something about that. Concentrate the apprenticeship movement on those aged 14 to 24. Bring back young apprentices at 14. All the great geniuses of the Industrial Revolution started as young apprentices at 14. We should bring back young apprenticeships and also abolish EBacc. I am glad to say that the colleges I have been working on now for 10 years—the university technical colleges—number 48, with 14,500 students.

What we are most proud about with these colleges is that they are quite different. They work from 9 to 5, the working day. I say to the youngsters when they join, “This is the beginning of your working life”. For two days a week, from 14 to 16, they are making things with their hands, and they do academic subjects for the rest. The thing we are most proud about is that they have the best destinations of school leavers of any school in the country. In July this year, 42% of our leavers went to university, but 85% of them did STEM subjects—double the national average—and 31% became apprentices. The average for a normal school is 6%.

Why do Ministers not explain to people how much more apprentices can earn at 18? If you are accepted as a higher apprentice at Rolls-Royce, BMW or Network Rail, and all the qualifications you have are one A-level and one BTEC, you can earn up to £20,000. If you want to go to the Navy, it will pay £32,500—much more than a graduate will get after three or four years as an undergraduate. We must sell this positively if we are to get more people wanting to be apprentices.

We have 24% getting jobs. Why do they get jobs? Because our youngsters have the skills that employers want. They have all worked in teams. That no longer happens in schools. They make things with their hands. That no longer happens in schools. The only lessons I remember from the grammar school I went to in 1945 was two hours of carpentry, making dovetail and tenon joints, which I can just about still do. All that has gone—disappeared totally. Our students can also deal with problem solving, which is no longer done in normal schools. A complete revolution is needed, and UTCs should expand.

The good news I have for noble Lords tonight is that three changes are now being made to UTCs which will mean that they will grow. The first of these is that we are now allowed to recruit at 11. Three years ago, we set up a sort of preparatory school at Leigh in Dartford, alongside the UTC, recruiting youngsters at 11 to 14. It was remarkable to go and see them. One of the first things we discovered was that we get many more girls than boys at that stage, which is good. I saw girls doing GCSE computing at the age of 11. I also saw girls doing basic engineering at 11. This is now considered to be such a success, even by the Government, that they are encouraging other UTCs to start at 11, and any new ones that come along will go from 11 to 18.

The second thing is that the present Secretary of State is the first Secretary of State who likes technical education. He has made it his principal responsibility, which he has done because he came from a manufacturing background and worked with businesspeople in factories. He went to visit the UTC in Plymouth about 10 days ago and was very impressed. The Navy supports the Plymouth one very strongly, so he saw naval ratings helping with the teaching in the college. Again, it produces higher apprentices at 18. When he left the college he said:

“We should never underestimate the importance and the power that technical, vocational qualifications have in terms of driving our economic performance. And UTCs like the one I visited at Plymouth today are a perfect exemplar of what more we need to be doing in the future”.


He is the first Secretary of State for 10 years who has said anything nice about UTCs.

Michael Gove was totally opposed to them; he did not believe in technical education below 16; the other three flitted over technical education. So that is very good and, as a result, we are going to be allowed to make applications for new UTCs. We have three going in next month, and one is opening in Doncaster this year. So the tide is behind me, the sun is actually not blinding my eyes, and I feel some sense of motion. I cannot say that it has happened entirely with the help of the department—but even it is now being helpful, because it realises that we have to do something quite dramatic in order to catch up with the rest of Europe and the rest of the world in technical education.

Apprenticeships

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

As the noble Lord is aware, we have listened consistently to feedback from employers since the scheme began two years ago, which is why we extended the time employers could use their levy from 18 to 24 months. We have also increased the amount of money they can pass down their supply chain. We continue to engage regularly with all employer groups.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his personal support of university technical colleges. Some 30% of students from these 48 colleges become apprentices each year. The one at Sellafield had 80% apprentices last year, which compares with an average of only 6% from ordinary comprehensives in England. All technical education is being squeezed out of pre-16 education, because it is being asked to follow EBacc. EBacc should be scrapped if you want more apprenticeships.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I disagree with my noble friend on EBacc, but applaud all the work he has done on UTCs and their role in the apprenticeship programme.

School Exclusion: Timpson Review

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Timpson report and the reaction to it that we have heard from the Minister tonight. I hope that it will lead to a significant reduction in the number of pupils who are excluded—or off-rolled or home educated or sent to PRUs—which has grown far too much in the past few years.

It is very welcome to see that the consultation process that the Minister announced is so wide, and I am glad that he is in charge—he is the Minister in the department who is driving this policy, and we should be grateful for that. In the consultation process, I hope that he will ask the head teacher who excludes to meet with the local authority and the parents to determine a plan for the education of the student who is being excluded, and to review that plan, and for Ofsted to examine it in its inspections.

The Minister should also not exclude the possibility of some financial support for parents when they have to take on the responsibility of educating their children. One cost that should certainly be paid for by the school is for the examinations that the student takes. Those cost about £300 to £400 per set of examinations and, as those now have to be announced, that is the very least that should be provided for them.

In general, I warmly support the report. This is a major step forward in the education system.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank my noble friend Lord Baker for his supportive comments, and I agree with everything that he said. There are 30 recommendations in the Timpson report, and we are broadly supportive of all of them. However, Timpson stresses that we need to be careful about how we implement any of his recommendations and that we should have careful consultation with key stakeholders, parents in particular, on how we take matters forward. For example, by making permanent exclusions more difficult, we do not want to push the problem into another bucket such as off-rolling or misuse of the different attendance codes. But we all share the objective that we want to reduce the problem in the system.

Education: Art and Design

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we clearly need to prioritise our bursaries budget so that we can incentivise applications in subjects where it is hardest to attract applicants. The vacancy rate, though, for art and design teachers as a percentage of teachers in post is lower than for music; indeed, over the last two years we have seen an increase in the number of applicants for both art and design and drama.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that GCSEs in design and technology have fallen by 30%, which is disastrous? I therefore welcome the support for university technical colleges because our 14,000 students do technical subjects at 16 to 18. Does he welcome the new Ofsted policy from Amanda Spielman, under which in the future Ofsted will concentrate less on exam results and more on a broad and balanced curriculum? This is good for art, music and design and technology.

Free Schools: Educational Standards

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to open this debate on free schools and the programme of this Government and the previous coalition Government, which I think I can safely say has been an unqualified success. It has been a success on many fronts: on quality and on bringing capacity, choice, innovation and competition to the system.

I will deal firstly with quality. Some 32% of free schools inspected have been judged outstanding by Ofsted, compared with 21% of all other schools, and 86% have been judged good or outstanding. This is truly remarkable, considering how early in their life free schools are inspected, when they have little if any test data to show and Ofsted inspectors generally are not rushing to award outstanding ratings to schools with few or no results. It shows that the pupils in these schools must be making good progress and that the schools must be demonstrating this to Ofsted.

It really is striking that free schools are 50% more likely to be rated outstanding than other schools. Last year, for the fourth year running, primary free schools were among the top-performing schools in the year 1 phonics screening check and key stage 1 SATs tests. Last year, for the second year running, secondary free schools were the highest performers at Progress 8, with an average score of +0.24. Indeed, four out of the top 10 performers at Progress 8 last year were free schools: Dixons Trinity Bradford, Eden Girls, William Perkin Church of England and Tauheedul Boys. At key stage 5 we have the London Academy of Excellence in Newham sending many of its pupils to Russell group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, clearly raising the game of other sixth forms in Newham. At King’s maths school last year, 99% of students achieved an A or A* in maths A-level.

On capacity, 442 free schools have been opened, providing nearly 300,000 new school places. Adding those approved and in the pipeline but not yet open brings the total to more than 700. Half have been opened in the 30% most deprived areas of the country, and 83% address a need for places.

I must pay tribute to the free schools team at the Department for Education, headed by Mela Watts. You do not normally become a civil servant expecting to find yourself as a kind of venture capitalist opining on the merits of new organisations, but the people in the free schools team have adapted brilliantly to that challenge. I must also recognise the very significant role now played by regional schools commissioners in assessing free schools proposals.

On costs, free schools have been brought in at a cost one-third lower than under the preceding Labour Government’s BSF programme. Finding sites for these schools obviously is not easy, particularly in inner cities. I must also pay tribute in this regard to the Department for Education’s property arm, LocatED, very ably run by Lara Newman, which has been particularly effective and imaginative in this regard. Free schools have been opened not just in former offices and factories but in former police stations, a church, on top of a supermarket and in one case in a former fire station. I remember visiting that school. The planners had insisted for some reason that the pole that the firemen used to slide down had to be kept in place. I was particularly upset that, for health and safety reasons, I was not allowed to slide down it. I am delighted that 34 specialist free schools have been opened and 41 AP free schools, with more to come.

On innovation, the Sutton Trust has found that one-third of free schools have been shown to demonstrate a genuinely innovative approach to ethos and curriculum. Unfortunately, a limited number of schools have engaged with the knowledge-rich curriculum and teacher-led instructional approach now shown to be the most successful compared with the now debunked more progressive approach followed in this country for the past 30 years. As that approach is favoured by the Government, with hindsight it might have been better if the Government had been more prescriptive in this regard and aligned their policies more. I exhort them to do that in future.

However, there has been innovation in other areas. Dixons Trinity Academy, Bradford, follows Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset” approach. There is innovation at the four maths schools at King’s College London, in Exeter, in Cambridge and at the University of Liverpool—the latter two are in pre-opening—at Saracens High School, Barnet, which is supported by Saracens rugby club, and at Bolder Academy in Hounslow, which has teamed up with Sky—to name but a few.

Of course, the free schools programme has provided much-needed competition for the state school sector, as has the academy programme. All monopolies suffer from a lack of competition, which breeds inefficiency and complacency—a point that Marxists always seem to miss when they are keen to create yet more monopolies. The free schools programme has been particularly effective at providing competition and creating an environment in which a rising tide lifts all boats.

In conclusion, I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Michael Gove, my noble friend Lord Hill—I see that he is in his place—who started the programme, my noble friend the Minister, who continues it so well, and my noble friend Lord Baker, who has been involved in it so much. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy—I see that he is also in his place—who invented the programme with his 2005 paper, More Good School Places. I particularly want to mention the teachers, school leaders, MATs and sponsors who have supported the programme since its early days, when it often faced significant opposition. In this regard, I will mention in particular Katharine Birbalsingh at Michaela Community School, Ed Vainker at Reach Academy, Feltham, Hamid Patel at Tauheedul and Luke Sparkes at Dixons Trinity, Bradford—but there are many more. Those of us who have been involved in starting new ventures, organisations and schools know how challenging it is; we should be extremely grateful to these social entrepreneurs and pioneers.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot speak in the debate, unfortunately, as I must be in the Chamber because I will be the last speaker on Monday night. I want to place on record the educational world’s thanks to my noble friend Lord Nash for his enthusiasm in creating the free schools movement. Without him and my noble friend Lord Hill, we would not be where we are.

I was a bit disappointed that my noble friend Lord Nash did not mention UTCs, which are a form of free school too. They are funded in the same way, are independent of local authorities and have some of the best results in the country, which we are proud of. We produce 30% of apprentices compared with 7% from other sectors, and 47% of our students go to university, three-quarters of whom do so to study STEM subjects. My noble friend supported us strongly in that, for which I thank him. Indeed, the UTC in Pimlico will join my noble friend’s MAT in Westminster later this year.

[Lord Nash]

I am flattered by my noble friend’s remarks. I am sure that other noble Lords will mention UTCs, which are of course an important part of the programme.

Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness on initiating this debate on the impact of education on social mobility. She is quite right to emphasise that if we are to improve social mobility it must start in nursery schools and primary schools. They do a good job of it, but it runs into the sand at later stages, particularly when youngsters transfer from primary to secondary at age 11. The 11 to 14 age range in schools is known as key stage 3. Quite frankly, it is a mess and recognised as one. We have a lot of enthusiastic primary school children at the age of 11; by 13 or 14 a lot are disenchanted, disengaged and fed up. They are not learning anything that will help them get a job. What do they do? They have high absentee rates and unruly behaviour. Some get expelled by their heads. The capacity of heads to expel has now grown out of all proportion. There will be a report on this to the Government, who will have to restrain the capacity of heads to expel children because an expelled child is on the road to a culture of gangland. There is no question about that at all.

There is a very real problem with what to do with this key stage from age 11 to 14. This is one of the reasons why, for the past 10 years, I have been pioneering UTCs. These children are disengaged because they are following the Gove curriculum—a highly concentrated academic curriculum called Progress 8 and EBacc, which is a disaster. It is word for word the exact curriculum announced by the Secretary of State for Education in 1904, except he had one technical subject: drawing. Technical work is being extruded. If you visit your secondary schools you will find that they are not learning any technical skills at all. That is down by 57%. If you stay longer you will find that dance is down by 45%, drama down 29%, media and film studies down 34%, music down 23% and performing or expressive arts by 63%.

The well-rounded curriculum which I tried to devise in the late 1980s is now disappearing from our schools. It is one of the reasons why the young are so disenchanted and disengaged. The curriculum in the UTCs is quite different. For two days of the week, a student at a UTC will make things with their hands and design things on computers. Local businesspeople come in and teach, and bring in projects for the students to work on in teams. Students will get work experience and visit other companies. It is one reason why, although we have a very difficult intake, we have little disruption and, as I will show in a moment, the best destination data of any schools in the country.

As we have 50 such schools and 14,000 students, we are now producing a lot of data. Last year, we looked at what 4,000 students did before they joined us at 14. It is a shocking record. We found that 6% had been expelled by their previous school—in a normal school, the figure is 0.1% for such children. Another 6% had had long, fixed-term exclusions. We found that 3.5% had come from home education. When home education is good, it is good; when it is bad, it is horrid, and we get quite a lot of the horrid cases. In all, if we include those on pupil premium, our proportion of challenging students is 30% to 40%. No other secondary schools have that level of challenge. We face up to that challenge; we are very reluctant to expel. We immediately start teaching those children by giving them practical skills. We find that, half way through the first term, they suddenly realise that they are at an entirely different college. What is more, we treat those youngsters at 14 as adults, which they recognise: there is mutual respect.

We are therefore major agents of social mobility. I am proud that our destination data—what happens to the children when they leave—is the best in the country. Last July, we had 2,000 leavers. The head of each school has to identify what has happened to each child who has left. We have shown that that very few are unemployed—between 1% and 3%. A normal school would have 8% to 11% unemployed. We have 30% who become apprentices; in a normal school, the figure is only 7%. We find that 43% go to university, which is a bit lower than for a normal school, but of those, three-quarters do STEM subjects. They do not do the S and M of STEM but the T and E—technology and engineering, which has disappeared from ordinary schools. Can you believe this? I hope that you do, because it is true. That is extraordinary. When an ordinary secondary school says, “We do a lot of STEM subjects”, they are teaching science and maths; they are not teaching technology and engineering.

Every year, we produce employable engineers at 16 and 18. We are also proud that we get some into Russell group universities. We now recruit at 14 and 16. As an experiment, we have a feeder school of 11 to 14 in Dartford, where we teach a different curriculum from that taught by schoolteachers at 11 to 14. It is heavily oversubscribed, and those students will go straight into the UTC beside it.

We have to recognise that the fourth industrial revolution in which we are living will destroy a massive number of unskilled jobs: driverless cars, driverless lorries, warehouses and all the rest of it—if you get anything from Amazon any time, your hand first touches it when someone knocks on your door. All that is going to happen in spades. It will also cut swathes through middle management because of artificial intelligence. The career of a bank manager has disappeared. My local bank has two girls at a desk instead of 10 clerks and two or three people in the background as managers. That has all gone, but we do not quite know what jobs will emerge. It is therefore the duty of our education system to provide skills for youngsters which are very adaptable. The skill that our youngsters have when they leave at 18 is that they have made things with their hands; they have fixed things. Neither of those happens in schools today. Our students have designed things—again, that hardly happens in other schools; and they have done problem solving and worked in teams, which does not happen in our schools at all today. We are trying to equip our youngsters with skills which will improve their choices in life.

I know my time is almost up but I want to end with one statistic. Toxteth had race riots in 1981. I was the Minister; I had to go and help and I established technology centres. If you are a student in Toxteth today you have an 11% chance of going to university. We have a UTC at the edge of Toxteth which took 30 students from Toxteth last year—11%? 20%? 40%? 50%? 60%? No, 86% of those students have gone to university. Among their brothers down the road it is 11%; in our college it is 86%. That is what social mobility is all about.