Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Robert Halfon and Ian Mearns

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The crucial point is that the vast majority of level 2 and 3 apprentices are paid more than £6.30 an hour, and 90% of them go on to jobs or additional education afterwards.

The apprenticeship programme already supports low-income groups. The funding system gives targeted support to the participation of care leavers, and this year we are making £60 million available to training providers to support take-up by individuals from disadvantaged areas. We are committed to ensuring that high-quality apprenticeships are as accessible as possible to people from all backgrounds. We will take forward the Maynard recommendations for people with learning difficulties and our participation target for black and minority ethnic groups.

With regard to the amendment’s suggestion of a bursary for care leavers, I understand that some young people have greater challenges to overcome. That is why we are providing £1,000 to employers and training providers when they take on care leavers who are under 25. We will also pay 100% of the cost of training for small employers who employ care leavers. There is scope for apprenticeships to benefit social mobility even more. We are working across Government to use the apprenticeship programme to extend opportunities.

I am grateful to Lord Storey for tabling Lords amendment 6, which introduces a new clause into the Bill to require Ofsted to take into account the quality of the careers offer when conducting standard inspections of further education colleges. I welcome the work that Ofsted has already done to sharpen its approach. Matters relating to careers provision feature in all the graded judgments made by Ofsted when inspecting FE and skills providers. Destination data—published in 16 to 18 performance tables for the first time this year—are also becoming an established part of college accountability. Those are important steps.

I pay tribute to the good work that is already being done throughout the FE sector to prepare students for the workplace. Ofsted’s annual report for 2015-16 cites the excellent work of Derby College, which has set up employer academies so that learners benefit throughout their course from a range of activities, including workplace visits, talks from specialist speakers, masterclasses and enterprise activities. However, Ofsted noted in the same report that the quality of information, advice and guidance in FE providers can vary and does not always meet the full range of students’ needs. That is why I want us to take this opportunity to go further.

Lords amendment 6 signals our determination to ensure that every FE student has access to good-quality, dedicated careers advice, which I know this House supports. That is vital if we are to tackle the skills gap and ensure that we make opportunities accessible to everyone. We have proposed some drafting changes to the amendment to ensure that it achieves its intended effect. The amendment makes it clear that in its inspection report Ofsted must comment on the quality of a college’s careers provision. I urge hon. Members to accept the amendment. FE colleges are engines of social mobility, and this is our chance to ensure that students from all backgrounds can access the support they need to get on the ladder of opportunity and to benefit from the best skills education and training.

I will now turn to the amendments that the Government are asking the House to accept without any further amendment. The Government support Lords amendment 2, which requires schools to give education and training providers the opportunity to talk directly to pupils about the approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships they offer. I would like to place on the record my significant gratitude to Lord Baker of Dorking for tabling the amendment, and for his unstinting support for the Government’s technical education reforms. As I have explained, high-quality careers advice is the first rung on the ladder of opportunity and will play a key part in realising our ambition for high-quality skills education and training. The amendment will strengthen the Bill by ensuring that young people hear much more consistently about the merits of technical education routes and recognise them as worthy career paths. I urge the House to agree to it. I hope that never again when I go around the country will I meet an apprentice who was refused access to the school they were taught in to talk about apprenticeships.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I actually welcome that proposal. We have heard lots of evidence that schools are not allowing FE colleges and apprenticeship providers to access their students and to tell them what the options are post-16. That, of course, is because of the “bums on seats” funding regime for post-16 studies in schools. How are we going to get around the deep-seated culture in schools that prevents careers advisers and others from providing that independent, impartial advice to young people in schools?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman speaks a lot of sense on this issue. Every time I meet an apprentice, wherever I am in the country, I ask them, “Did your school encourage you to do an apprenticeship?” Nine times out of 10, they say that their school taught them nothing about apprenticeships and skills. We have already changed careers advice so that schools have to offer advice that includes apprenticeships and skills. I believe that Lords amendment 2 will make a huge difference, because technical bodies, apprenticeship bodies and university technical colleges will be able to go into schools, and schools will publish policy guidance on this.

I agree that a huge part of this is about cultural change. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State always talks about parity of esteem. Until we ensure that we have parity of esteem between skills and technical education and going to university—that is also a wonderful thing to do—we will not achieve the cultural change that the hon. Gentleman talks about.

[Ian Mearns]

There is a problem with that, because training providers themselves have a vested interest—just as much as the schools do—in securing those students for their courses or apprenticeships. Is it not true that we need a much more robust process for the provision of impartial advice and guidance that does not include anyone’s vested interests?

[Robert Halfon]

We are looking at careers guidance in the long term, and at how we can make it more independent and skills-focused. I think that the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company in getting more people to do work experience, along with the money we are investing in these things, will help, but there are no easy answers. There are some great private providers, FE colleges and university technical colleges that I would love to see going into schools. However, I think that this is an important step forward to change the culture and ensure that pupils have the access to learn about apprenticeships and the technical education and skills that they need.

Lords amendment 3 introduces a new clause specifically providing for regulations to be made about the delivery of documents about an insolvent FE body to the registrar, and how those documents are kept and accessed by the public. Essentially, the new clause allows for the proper management of the paperwork of an insolvency procedure for an FE body.

I am pleased that the Government were able to accept amendment 4 in the other place, which deleted the words “if possible” from clause 25(2). The original drafting of subsection (2) was intended to offer reassurance to creditors and the education administrator that the education administration would not continue indefinitely while we waited for the education administrator to achieve the impossible. Instead, it caused concern, both in this House and in the other place, that student protection was in some way lessened. That was not our intention. Having sought the confirmation of lawyers that there was no change to our policy objectives, we were content to delete the words in order to address those concerns.

Lords amendment 5 replaced the original clause in the Bill with a new version in order to fully apply, rather than replicate, the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 to further education bodies in England and Wales. The new version of clause 40—formerly clause 37 —still allows the court to disqualify any governors whom it finds liable of wrongdoing from being governors, and now also from being company directors in any part of the UK. It fully prevents disqualified individuals from being able to repeat the mistakes they have made in a different way, potentially at the expense of another FE institution. We have amended the clause to close a potential loophole in the Bill and more fully protect learners at FE institutions from the potential actions of any governor who acts recklessly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and the shadow Minister for their speeches. I understand that the hon. Member for Southport is stepping down. He is an experienced Member of the House, and I send him every good wish for the future.

To answer the hon. Gentleman we are essentially accepting de facto Lords amendment 6, which was suggested by Lord Storey. We have just made it tighter for legal reasons and, in fact, stronger. Ofsted will now be required to comment on college careers offers in its reports. However, we accept the principle of Lords amendment 6.

I set out earlier the Government’s position that the majority of the Lords amendments serve to strengthen the measures in the Bill and ensure their success in practice. I urge hon. Members to accept all the amendments made in the Lords, with the exception of Lords amendment 1. As I explained earlier, that amendment is subject to financial privilege and I ask Members to reject it on that basis, while noting the work I have set out, which demonstrates our commitment to finding the most effective ways to address barriers and support the disadvantaged into apprenticeships.

The shadow Minister said, in essence, that we should put our money where our mouth is. It is worth remembering that we have 900,000 apprentices at the moment, which is the highest on record, and that 25% of apprentices come from the poorest fifth of areas. The Careers & Enterprise Company has more than 1,300 enterprise advisers going into schools, and they are set to target something like 250,000 students in 75% of the career coldspots in the country. The National Careers Service is there to give careers advice and CV advice, and to provide personal contact either face to face, over the telephone or on the internet. The bodies have different roles.

I ask Members to accept our amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 6, on which many noble Lords spoke. I spoke earlier of the positive activity at Derby College. It is by no means the only college taking active steps to provide high-quality careers advice to students. I have seen incredible work in my own college in Harlow and in Gateshead in the north-east of England. We want to ensure that all young people can access such support, and I ask Members to support that ambition by accepting the amendment in lieu.

[Ian Mearns]

I know that the Minister is determined and full of good intentions, but good intentions do not provide sound careers advice and guidance to young people who are in the system now. We need to see more urgency from the Government in backing up his decent intentions, to make sure that young people get the impartial advice and guidance they so deeply need as soon as possible.

[Robert Halfon]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman our intention. Given the financial climate, £90 million is no small sum of money to spend on careers, predominantly with the Careers & Enterprise Company, which has enterprise advisers going into schools. There is £20 million for mentoring services in schools. As I mentioned, enterprise advisers are going up and down the country to coldspots. The National Careers Service alone is getting more than £75 million this year to advise on careers. That is real financial backing for two very important services.

[Ian Mearns]

I am listening to the Minister. I was a member of the National Careers Service national association board prior to the invention of Connexions. I seem to remember that the national budget for careers at that time was something like £130 million. That was more than 15 years ago. In the current climate, the figures the Minister is talking about are inadequate.

[Robert Halfon]

Given the financial climate, the £90 million to be spent predominantly with the Careers & Enterprise Company and the £77 million that is going to the National Careers Service this year alone are sizeable sums of money. As I have said, we are developing a careers strategy. Obviously the election is occurring, but I hope very much that we will see careers with much more of a skills focus, and do much more work in schools on mentoring and on work experience.

I have said that the Bill is a Ronseal Bill. It is very much part of our reforms to create an apprenticeships and skills nation and to give millions of young people the ladder of opportunity to get the jobs, security and prosperity that they need. It is a Bill to ensure that technical education is held in the regard it deserves. In the unlikely event of a college insolvency, students will be protected. The measures in the Bill make vital changes to support young people to build the essential skills that our nation needs, and they provide the right support to enable young people to climb that ladder. Many Members on both sides of the House and in the other place have spoken in support of that ambition, and I take this opportunity to thank them for their ongoing commitment to the Bill and for supporting all our young people to reach their potential.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.