Education Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sure that the Minister will ensure that his response is relevant to the amendments that we are discussing.

[Mr Gibb]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the light of your ruling, I will make just one point to my hon. Friend which is relevant to the amendments. The performance tables will identify the results and show how well children did at primary school. There will be a column for children who achieve level 5 at key stage 2, and another column for those who achieve level 3 at key stage 2. There will also be columns for those with special educational needs and those with disabilities. That will help to identify those schools that are coasting, and we will then take action against those schools or help them to improve their results.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West also talked about triggers for inspections. That is a matter for Her Majesty’s chief inspector, but I can confirm that there will be annual risk assessment for outstanding schools, which will normally commence three years after the last inspection. Where there is a change of head teacher before that point, however, the chief inspector has agreed to bring forward the risk assessment, including an HMI review. Ultimately, however, we have to leave it to the professional judgment of the inspector to determine whether an inspection should be triggered. Factors to be taken into account might include: the performance data of a school that had previously been judged to be less than outstanding in achievement or teaching not showing signs of improvement since its last inspection; progress measures showing that pupils or students were not making good progress in comparison with similar groups nationally; or below-average attendances showing little sign of improvement. Many factors can act as a trigger for an inspection.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of admissions. I thank him for his attention to detail in scrutinising the codes, but I can assure him that they are statutory. “Must” means “must” in those codes; they have the full force of the law. On his wider point, the vast majority of the changes can be implemented quickly, but there are cases in which they might take longer than 14 days, at which point 15 April will form an ultimate backstop. The key point in paragraph 3.1 of the code states that the adjudicator’s direction should be implemented as quickly as possible.

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[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 28.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient—

[Mr Hayes]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

If the Minister could just hold himself back for a second, with this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 29, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 36, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 39, 43, 47 to 71, 99 and 100.

[Mr Hayes]

My enthusiasm to rise to speak to the amendments is indicative of the thorough scrutiny that the Bill has enjoyed here and in the other place, and of the spirit in which that scrutiny has taken place.

If I may, I shall speak first to Lords amendments 47 to 71, which make important changes to schedule 12 and further strengthen the provisions that strip away unnecessary central controls over the governance and dissolution arrangements of further education colleges and sixth-form colleges.

You, Madam Deputy Speaker, with your usual assiduity, will have seen those provisions in the context of the Education Act 1944. In bringing that legislation to the House, the then President of the Board of Education as he was known, Rab Butler, said that it is not possible

“to start colleges ‘out of the blue,’… It is essential that the House should realise that direction by the State from the top is not the right way to administer this vast matter. What is wanted is to encourage the desires, appetites and feelings of those who wish for different forms of adult education and then to try to meet them as far as possible. As long as we follow that line, I can tell the House that it is our desire to reform and bring up to date the adult education system and to make a great stride forward in this regard.”—[Official Report, 12 May 1944; Vol. 399, c. 2261.]

Just as a stride forward was made then, so a stride forward is being made now, although I would not claim to be as great as that very noble and distinguished gentleman, Mr Butler.

In speaking to these amendments, however, the important thing to make clear is the Government’s absolute unwavering and unabridged commitment to the creation of a freer, more responsive further education and skills system—one that is based upon the principles of fairness, shared responsibility and freedom from central Government controls.

I say that not for any doctrinaire reason, but simply because of this enduring truth: unless we make the system sufficiently nimble to respond to dynamic demand, it will not be fit for purpose. Through the Bill, and in that spirit, we propose to remove a raft of unnecessary and prescriptive duties and to reduce the control of the Government and their agencies over the affairs of colleges.

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[Mr Hayes]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Perhaps I may help the Minister by saying that if he returns to his notes, his diary might not get so full.

[Mr Hayes]

That is wise advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is taken in the spirit in which it is given.

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[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the amazing increase in apprenticeships that he has outlined. I met my local college, Stourbridge college, and other colleges last week, and they reported a huge increase in apprenticeships over the past six months. Is he aware of another route into apprenticeships, which emerged during a meeting that I had the previous week with Stourbridge jobcentre? It reported that among 18 to 24-year-olds a route in was via two-week work experience placements. In many cases, they were being converted into apprenticeships.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It is very interesting to hear of the extensive commitment that the Minister has personally to apprenticeships, and indeed to hear the point that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has made, but we are discussing Lords amendments. Although Lords amendment 36 is about securing the provision of apprenticeships in certain regulations, the debate is going a little wide of that. Perhaps the Minister could relate his comments to the amendments.

[Mr Hayes]

I was not going to be encouraged to speak lyrically about work experience, although I could, but I hear and value what my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) says.

Amendments 36, 43 and 100 deal specifically with the so-called apprenticeship offer. As I said, apprenticeships play a key role in promoting growth and prosperity in British business and give renewed hope and purpose to our young people, who are so affected by the present climate. Through the Bill, we are redefining the apprenticeship offer. We are moving away from what I regard as an unrealistic guarantee that sought to require the Government to tell employers whom they should and should not employ. The previous Government took the view that the House could place a duty on the chief executive of skills funding to fund apprenticeships for anyone who wanted them. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) intervenes from a sedentary position, but he knows that in practice, the previous offer was undeliverable. There was much discussion of this matter in the other place. I pay tribute in particular to Lord Layard, who made this case forcefully and with whom I have enjoyed many discussions. He also writes persuasively about happiness —I read a recent essay from him on that subject. Happiness is all of our aims, is it not, individually and communally?

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[Mr Stuart]

I am always focused on happiness. I thought I could increase the Minister’s sense of contentment if I attempted to correct him. Under the previous situation, there was an obligation not to fund an apprenticeship for anyone who wanted it but to provide one, outwith any ability necessarily to ensure that an employer came forward. That is why the Minister and the Government were right to make that alteration, not withstanding the complaints of Opposition Members.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman got his point on the record, but we are not debating the previous Government’s record or apprenticeships generally; we are debating amendments on quite narrow points in the Bill. I know the Minister is really eager to come back to that.

[Mr Hayes]

As you say, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are debating the character of the apprenticeship offer. This Government take the view that we need further to refine the legal framework for apprenticeships. The debate on this subject in the other place was on the character of that duty. Lords amendment 36 places a new duty on the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency to make reasonable efforts to secure employer involvement in apprenticeships. That is so important because we have changed assumptions of the nature of apprenticeships. We take the view that apprenticeships should intrinsically involve employment—making an offer separate from employment seemed nonsensical.

I make that point because until relatively recently, some apprenticeships—programme-led apprenticeships, for example—were not tied to employment in quite the same way. Lords amendment 36 was the outcome of a great deal of hard work and good will, as I have described. The overtures made to me by Lords Layard, Wakeham, Willis and Sutherland persuaded the Government and my noble Friends to devise an amendment that satisfies the wishes of those who want to place a clear duty in the Bill, but not one that the Government think is undeliverable.

Although I know some feel that I have summarised the Lords amendments all too briefly, those amendments put apprenticeships, the freedoms about which I have spoken, the changed inspection regime, the different role for the Government, the new emphasis on skills, and the mantra—I decidedly and deliberately put it that clearly—of freedom, flexibility, innovation and dynamism, at the very heart of this legislation. I think they improve the Bill significantly and I look forward to hearing whether the Opposition think so too.