Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. On these Benches, we welcome the Bill as the first step in implementing the much more significant role that further education needs to play in transforming the lives and life chances of individuals, communities and wider society. Quite properly, the Bill is chiefly concerned with structural or technical issues. The House has done its usual, excellent and thorough job of exploring large numbers of those matters through the four days spent in Committee. The Bill deals with what one might call the supply side of provision by aiming to make it more responsive and adaptable to the needs of employers and the community, for example. Turning any vision into action is no easy thing and I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for an extremely helpful meeting, including on the issue of incentivising learners to take up the new opportunities that the Bill seeks to increase.

However, one of the crucial factors in radically increasing the take-up of the opportunities that should flow from such responsiveness is the provision of financial support for those who are unable to meet the costs of their studies because they are reliant on state benefits—for example, if they are unemployed. I therefore also support Amendments 92 to 98, all of which—although in different ways—aim at broadening the range and scope of support for learners. As your Lordships will have noted, Amendment 93 also specifically refers to amending the universal credit conditions in a way that would permit full-time study. There is therefore already a wide degree of support for more flexibility in the benefits system to maximise access to skills training and education.

I turn to Amendment 90A in more detail. The current welfare rules pose a major barrier to upskilling or retraining for many people out of work—a situation that is not new. Historically, that was embodied in the 16-hour rule but persists under the new universal credit system. For example, someone currently in receipt of universal credit will lose access to benefits if they take up the lifetime skills guarantee of a fully funded first level 3 qualification or other further education qualification. The Chancellor has invested in programmes in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education to support 16 to 24 year-olds but the programmes do not currently operate in tandem and it is difficult to make them work for employers, students, unemployed people and colleges. In addition, while support with tuition fees is one element in enabling people to begin their courses, living costs—the maintenance element—are often a more significant barrier, a matter often discussed in reference to students in higher education but that is just as much a problem for students in further education, if not more so.

I fully recognise that the Government have begun a significant programme of substantial and complex work over the student loan system and the LLE, and that joint work is already under way between the DfE and the Department for Work and Pensions. I am most grateful to the Minister for having shared with me and colleagues some of those issues and their proposed solutions. We appreciate that there are also significant complexities—technical, practical and legislative—in embodying detailed provision for student financial support in primary legislation, and of which those of us who participated in scrutiny of the Higher Education and Research Act and its cousins will be all too well aware. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for the information in her recent letter about the lifelong learning entitlement amendments tabled on Wednesday and the invitation to a briefing on the matter.

However, the purpose of the amendment is to give the noble Baroness an opportunity to assure the Committee that the Government are committed to reforming those aspects of the benefits system that may act as barriers to people’s participation in gaining new skills or increasing their present skills, which our post-Covid society will need. I would welcome further discussions with her or officials as the Government’s proposals are developed. At this stage, subject to those assurances, I will leave this as a probing amendment.

[Baroness Janke (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 93 in the names of my noble friend Lord Storey and myself. As the right reverend Prelate said, the amendments in this group deal with finance and incentives to take up the training and development opportunities in the Bill, as well as addressing the disincentive posed by universal credit to taking up those opportunities.

Amendment 93 seeks to change the current situation of people who are unemployed and wish to follow full-time training courses to improve their job prospects by giving them entitlement to universal credit, from which they are currently excluded. As has been explained, that is because those receiving universal credit have obligations to prioritise job searches and take available jobs over full-time training. In addition, the length of time in which people can continue receiving universal credit while undertaking work-focused study has been capped at eight weeks. People taking up courses on offer would have to give up universal credit and have the choice of whether to take up chances of reskilling or have enough money on which to live, eat and pay bills. Unemployed people or those on low-paid jobs are the least likely to take out a loan, further risking indebtedness and poverty for themselves and their families.

The Bill is about the importance of training and retraining to support people and employers. The Government have rightly invested in traineeships, apprenticeships and the Kickstart and Restart programmes. However, those schemes have limited eligibility. Unemployment has risen in age groups other than those aged 18 to 25, on whom much attention is focused, but the people who would benefit from claiming universal credit are often those who would benefit most from retraining and development.

There is a lack of co-ordination across departments to make the Bill and its provisions succeed. There needs to be appraisal by the DWP and I should like to hear from the Minister what the Government have done to consider the difficulties of people who are trying to take up courses when they are unemployed and have no other means of support. Amendment 93 seeks to amend the regulations on universal credit to enable a more flexible and enabling approach to those most in need of retraining development for decent jobs. It relates only to courses leading to the lifetime guarantee and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I call Lord Janke.

[Baroness Janke (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am not a Lord, as you will see, but I thank the Deputy Chairman for calling me.

I support this amendment, which basically offers much greater certainty and flexibility and indeed—as my noble friend Lord Addington has already said—generosity. It gives confidence to people that lifelong learning is important and that they will have the opportunity throughout their lives to access different development skills and training, so that they can indeed plan their career and own development, while knowing that the flexibility is there to enable them to take maximum benefit from it.

We know that the average British worker will do different jobs throughout their career, so flexible learning will be essential. The developments that we see in green and digital technology will need lifelong learning; they will need people to be engaged at all stages of their lives. This offers a framework and a context for people to have the learning habit throughout their lives and benefit from it. Confidence is important. We heard earlier in the debate that some people will not be able to afford this training. Very often, these are the people who would most benefit from it, so I would like to feel that the Government will consider the idea of giving learners confidence that they will be able to take up opportunities.

With regard to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, this is a different kind of learning. We are not talking so much about specialising in higher education, which I think she was referring to, but the opportunity to embrace a learning experience throughout one’s life. What we have here is a much better and more flexible system.

I hope that the Minister and the Government will look more closely at some of these plans, and perhaps see whether some ideas here could benefit the Bill. I am sure that we will have a chance to revisit these proposals at a later stage. I hope, too, that noble Lords will support the intention behind these plans sufficiently to give them some real consideration, with the possibility of exploring them further at a later stage.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Janke: my list has an “L” in front of her name. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport.