Apprenticeships
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of apprenticeships.
Mr Speaker, the other element is skills—but my skills could never be as great as your own, I hasten to add.
The guitarist Chet Atkins once said:
“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can’t give you a formula for that.”
Mr Speaker, you and I know, along with others, that long apprenticeships in public service can bear out the first part of that sentiment. On overnight stardom, I say only that the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the new shadow Business Secretary, will no doubt enlighten us on some future occasion.
Mr Speaker, you and I have no wish for this debate to become an exercise in party political tergiversation alone. There is no need for unnecessary contumely, and no need for more criticism of Opposition Members than that which is necessary to, by contrast, highlight the extent of our achievements.
There are many on the Opposition Benchers whose commitment to apprenticeship training is deep and sincere, and I recognise that the previous Government did indeed invest in apprenticeships—certainly towards the end. It is also fair to point out that there was a rise of almost 50,000 in the number of apprentices aged over 25, so, despite some things that we have read recently, the growth in older apprentices is a trend change that has been taking place over a number of years.
Indeed, the previous Government recognised, as you will know Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Leitch report on skills, which they commissioned, that such growth in the skilling of older workers was essential to keep pace with our competitors by upskilling and reskilling the existing work force.
Above all, I know that Members on both sides of the House recognise that apprenticeship training is a sure way to success. The all-party group on further education, skills and lifelong learning recently called for the creation of a “Royal Society of Apprentices” as a means of raising the profile of what many of us believe is our most effective form of vocational training, and I will, I am pleased to tell the House today, take that proposal forward.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows and is quite right that all Members are in favour of apprenticeships, but we are in favour of quality apprenticeships. When I was Chair of the Education and Skills Committee, I discovered that too many apprenticeships lasted only one year and very many did not lead to a secure job. There are now 1 million unemployed young people, and some of us believe that 6% of young people going into apprenticeships is not enough. We need new efforts to get more people apprenticeships now.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman has been a long-standing advocate of apprenticeships, and he rightly draws attention to previous Select Committee reports on the subject. He highlighted those reports in the Chamber on more than one occasion when I was present, and he is right in two particular respects: first, it is important that we focus apprenticeships on where they are of most value, and there is more evidence to suggest that they are of most value to young people between the ages of 16 and 24; and, secondly, it is important that we are relentless in our drive for quality. He is right, too, that as we increase the quantity of apprenticeships there will be a tension with quality, but I shall say a great deal more today about the steps that we have taken and the future steps that we propose to take to achieve just that ambition.
Having said that there is a broad measure of agreement, a point echoed by the hon. Gentleman, I should say, first, that the difference between us and the previous Government is that we have made apprenticeships the pivot around which the rest of the skills system turns. Secondly, we have made them fill a bigger space than ever before. Finally, we have put in place an unparalleled level of funding to support our single-minded aim to create more apprenticeships than modern Britain has ever seen. It is important to point out that that growth has not been only in traditional craft apprenticeships, but in the new crafts too—advanced engineering, IT, the creative industries and financial services.
Why, people might ask, do we put such an emphasis on apprenticeships? It is not just that apprenticeships work, although they do, or that an apprenticeship is probably the most widely recognised brand in the skills shop window, although it is; it is also about what apprenticeships symbolise—the passing on of skills from one generation to the next and the proof that that offers that learning by doing is just as demanding and praiseworthy as learning from a book. As William Morris said, all art and craft is
“the expression by man of his joy in labour”.
It is my ambition to dispel once and for all the myth that one can gain accomplishment only through academic prowess. The sense of worth that people gain through the work of their hands—through practical, technical and vocational skill—needs to be recognised, just as we recognise academic achievement.
It is that sense of apprenticeships as the embodiment of a continuum that guarantees their place at the heart of my vision for skills. I hope that, like me, hon. Members on both sides will welcome the provisional figures that show that, in the academic year that has just finished, nearly 443,000 people started an apprenticeship in England.
Mr Hayes
That is the kind of testing question and penetrating intervention that I expected during this debate. None the less, it was most welcome, and from a Member who never ceases to represent his constituents in the Isle of Wight with vigour, verve and absolute integrity. His support for apprenticeships has been critical in delivering the 100% increase in Isle of Wight apprenticeship numbers to which he has drawn the House’s attention.
Mr Sheerman
Some of us sometimes try to get the Minister to be cross with us because he is always so polite and always strokes the feathers of everyone who asks him a question. However, I have to put it to him again: we all know that apprenticeships are something of a fig leaf for the Government. One million young people are unemployed and the Government keep pointing to what I call the fig leaf of apprenticeships.
Will the Minister stop weaving the myth that they are all three or four-year apprenticeships leading to secure jobs? What is the average length of an apprenticeship today? That is the crucial thing. I think that the Minister is going to have to say that it is about a year. Is that the truth? That is what the public want to know. What quality and length are the apprenticeships of which he is so proud?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is renowned for his insight, and I had thought until today that he was equally renowned for his patience. I said that I would deal with quality and I assure him that I will also deal with the length of apprenticeships. I think he is right. Although there is no direct, guaranteed link between the length of an apprenticeship and its quality, there is a relationship. It is not a direct correlation, but it is a correlation none the less.
Today I will set out my demands for a minimum length for apprenticeships. That is perfectly reasonable. As I said, it is not a guarantee of quality, but it will certainly offer considerable assurance to the hon. Gentleman and others who, like me, are determined that quality should match quantity. The hon. Gentleman has, over many years, supported my view that technical education is critical not merely because it serves an economic function—because of its utility—but because of what it does for social mobility and social cohesion. Drawing on his patience and insight once again, I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait a few moments. I shall be speaking about the issue at considerable and eloquent length.
The figures that I cited show that numbers were up by more than half in the 2009-10 academic year. I want to make the point firmly that that includes an increase of about 10% in the number of apprentices under 19. I remind hon. Members that that Government achievement has been completed not merely because of our concentrated effort and the funding that we have put in place, although that is critical, but thanks to the work of further education colleges and other training providers, businesses coming forward and creating apprenticeship places, and learners and their families seizing the opportunity with both hands. The real credit lies with the learners, the training organisations and the businesses that allowed that expansion in the apprenticeship programme to take place.
Mr Hayes
The answer is that I do not know; in these circumstances, it is always right to be straightforward. Because I know that the hon. Gentleman takes these matters seriously and is committed to getting this right, as I am, I will take his point away and look at it. He is arguing that there might be a conflict of interest in terms of provider and employer, and he is right to say that there should be a proper separation. However, as he will know, it is often the case in large companies that the training wing of the company provides the pedagogy associated with an apprenticeship while the apprentice is engaged in the work-based training in the same company, though in a different part of it. I would qualify his query with that caveat. None the less, I will take another look at the subject and will be more than happy to respond to him directly.
The pilot that I described will involve employers being asked to demonstrate how public funding will be used to leverage private investment and commitment to raising skill levels in their sectors or supply chains. As we grow the apprenticeship scheme, it is very important to take advantage of the value chains associated with our major corporates—their supply chains and their distribution chains, where they exist. Typically, Governments have spent insufficient time considering how that might work in the light of the well-established nature of those relationships and the dependence of large organisations on myriad smaller companies, the fragility of which, by their very nature, is possibly injurious to the interests of those corporates.
For example, major suppliers in the automotive industry tend to have very large numbers of organisations with which they deal commercially in their locality, some of which are vital to the effectiveness of such large organisations. It is vital, in their interests and in ours, that we do more to ensure that those relationships allow us to grow the apprenticeship system within SMEs. It may be of value for large companies to absorb some of the bureaucracy and some of the cost, and certainly to absorb some of the management associated with seeding apprenticeships in their value chain. Bidding for the employer-led pilot will formally be launched in the new year.
Above all else, my advocacy of practical learning and my faith in apprenticeships are driven not by economic imperative—not merely by utility—but by social purpose. I said earlier that for too long the myth that only through academic accomplishment can a sense of worth be achieved has been perpetuated by those who themselves have travelled a gilded path to academia. Now it is time once again to recognise what Ruskin and Morris knew—that all those with practical tastes and talents, with technical vocational aptitudes, deserve their chance of glittering prizes too. This is not just because of the relationship between craft and beauty and, in turn, between beauty and truth, but because for society to cohere we must promote the common good through a shared appreciation of what each of can achieve. All feel valued when each feels valued. Given that inequality is the inevitable consequence for a free economy in a free society, only through social mobility can a communal sense of fairness be achieved. A society that is unequal and rigid is bound to be unable to secure the ties of shared identity, as invisible and yet as strong as the heartstrings of love.
Mr Sheerman
The hon. Gentleman and I share a great admiration for the poet John Clare. I am still waiting for a quotation from John Clare, who lived very near his constituency.
May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to the false dichotomy that comes through insidiously in his honeyed words—namely, that there is one group of people going into academia and higher education and a more worthy group going into apprenticeships and more practical learning by doing? This September, 36% of people went into higher education and 6% went into apprenticeships; we want him to talk about the 58% who went in neither direction.
Financial Education
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Yvonne Fovargue
I completely agree. I am extremely concerned for the future, when the transition fund ends. To be honest, I do not know where the advice agencies are transitioning to—some are transitioning to oblivion. There is also the ending of legal aid for debt. The Minister mentioned the importance of early advice. Much of the funding for early advice is going, because legal aid funding is now for advice only at the point of eviction, which is absolutely not cost-effective.
Yes, I totally support the idea of compulsory financial education in school, but it has to be part of a package. Part of the package should be to ensure that people do not get into debt with payday lenders, do not go to the fee-charging debt management agencies but do have access to early advice to help them when they realise that they are getting into debt. They need to be able to realise when the debt is becoming a problem.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been in another debate in another place, so forgive me for intervening, but when I was Chair of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, we did a lot of work on the issue. We found that many financial institutions put money into CABs. Would my hon. Friend encourage the private sector to carry on with that? There are many demands on its time, but Nationwide particularly was putting money straight into the CAB.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I add my congratulations to subscribers to MoneySavingExpert.com on petitioning us for this debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) not just on securing the debate but on his work in steering the all-party group on financial education for young people, on which I am pleased to serve as vice-chair. The group's report is a credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who has led the inquiry.
I have been leading a strand of the group looking at financial education in further education, so my remarks will draw on the relevant insights of that inquiry, which will issue its full report in the new year. I have been joined in that inquiry by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and I extend my thanks and appreciation for his involvement and expertise and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who also participated in our inquiry.
Like all hon. Members, I am particularly fortunate when my own constituents contribute to my work, and it would be appropriate to make particular mention of two who have been in touch with me about the issue: Caroline Stephens and Trisha Snowling. Caroline is a maths and personal finance teacher who has campaigned tirelessly to promote the cause, not just through her work but by writing to councillors and MPs to alert them to current developments from a practitioner's point of view. Trisha has a breadth of experience in financial careers and has been an articulate correspondent on the issue in recent months. She summarised to me neatly the consequences of a lack of financial literacy for people's ability to spot a bad deal in later life:
“They don’t bother to read the small print on a finance agreement—why would they? It’ll be in a language they didn’t study at school.”
Our inquiry set out to look at the response to the issue in further education to identify what distinguishes the experience in that sector from that in schools. Since there had been little assessment or co-ordination of colleges' approach to personal financial education, the group began by conducting a nationwide survey of current practice in colleges. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents—nearly 97%—thought that financial education should also be provided in further education institutions and 84% of responding colleges believed that students’ inability to manage their finances was a cause of failure to complete their courses, which should worry all of us who want young people to have the best possible chance to equip themselves for working life.
We supplemented the survey with oral evidence sessions to test those initial findings against the experience and expertise of college principals, student service managers and students themselves. An oral evidence session a fortnight ago bore out many of the survey’s emerging conclusions about students’ financial awareness. We welcomed an impressive group of students from two colleges in London to hear their perspective on both the financial education they had received so far and their attitudes to money more generally. The students we met were of course those who have really engaged with this learning opportunity. However, I was most struck by the fact that, although they understood about saving, they themselves identified that they did not know much about borrowing or debt. They also emphasised the importance of their family background and home environment, not necessarily to the specifics that they had learned, but to their underlying attitudes to money and their confidence in dealing with it.
A dominant theme of the inquiry’s evidence so far is that there is good financial education provision in a number of colleges around the country, but that it does not reach anything like the majority of students, even in the colleges that are leading the way. The reduction of entitlement funding, which some colleges were using to deliver their personal financial education through tutorial time, has had an effect on the sector’s ability to deliver such education. However, the evidence that we have received suggests that provision was sporadic even before that funding change. It seems that some colleges may have considered that modest provision within tutorial time as sufficient.
We heard some compelling accounts of quite sophisticated offers of financial education from City college Norwich and New college Swindon. However, even such colleges that are heavily geared towards financial literacy and business education are enticing only some of their students to take up their financial education offer.
What we have seen so far is that financial education is most effectively delivered when it falls naturally within a student’s chosen core curriculum. In further education, there is a wide array of opportunities to provide that. Where that is not the case, there are many challenges in achieving the required coverage of financial education in a student’s programme.
Mr Sheerman
I am impressed by what the hon. Gentleman is saying about his research. Has there been any indication of what are the most successful online tools? Just as the Government are keen on using online facilities for careers education, does he think that that would be a good way to learn about debt and credit?
Duncan Hames
We were made aware of online resources that students could use to supplement lectures that were available as part of their further education college’s provision. I think that it was at New college Swindon where students could register for an additional qualification to supplement the choices that they were already making and their normal lectures, which was largely learned independently and had testing arrangements which allowed them to study at their own pace. I offer that as one example in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.
The inquiry’s forthcoming written report will go into greater detail about the nature of the challenges that we saw in further education and the means that we suggest to address them.
I will end with a few remarks about what the inquiry has told us about financial education in schools. The evidence shows that further education as a sector is defined by choice and provision for a diverse range of student needs, from basic literacy and numeracy to running a business or preparing to attend university. That means that the starting position of college students reveals the results of their previous education, which might not have equipped them with the capability to deal with the challenges that students increasingly face, including their financial responsibilities.
I therefore argue that financial education in schools needs to lay a universal foundation or baseline in financial literacy for every student. Students who go on to further education will be able to build on that by using qualification-based study, which further education colleges are in a good position to deliver in a wide range of curriculum choices. That would allow those who have benefited from financial education in the school curriculum to progress later in their education. It would also limit the extent to which further education colleges have to, in the words of one witness, “play catch-up” and help students to retread what they missed in their school years.
I know that time is short, so I will conclude by encouraging Members to look out for the APPG’s second report in the new year and by urging them to support the motion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Willetts
My hon. Friend has absolutely described what a cluster is; I congratulate her. We support them. They are important for innovation and growth. Indeed, in the proposals published today, we are talking about making it easier for groups of institutions to come together to bid for funding from research councils, and also our enlightened Treasury has agreed that in future there will not be VAT on cost-sharing arrangements in which groups of institutions come together to share services in the interests of efficiency.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that in life sciences and many other areas of innovation there are lots of small companies, often in partnership with universities. Will he comment on the fact that many of those partnerships tell me that with the demise of the regional development agencies they have no access to a large amount of money held in Europe, essentially for innovation? There are billions of pounds that they cannot access.
Mr Willetts
The catalyst fund that I referred to in my previous answer is aimed specifically at getting financial support to new start-ups, and will help finance them through the so-called “valley of death” before they can get commercial funding. At the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on Tuesday, I argued that European research funding should be more easily accessible for small and medium-sized enterprises. The best way to achieve that is by cutting bureaucracy and the complexity in the current arrangements for accessing European funding. That is what I urged on the Commission.
Economic Growth and Employment
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Vince Cable
I have tried to explain that wherever I go, not just in the business community, there is an understanding that, given our inheritance, we have to pursue fiscal discipline. It is as simple as that. We will support that with economic growth measures that I will develop, responding to the comments of the hon. Member for Streatham, in a moment.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State knows that some of us, even on the Labour Benches, have always admired his grasp of economics, and his analysis is impressive. I also know that he gets around the country; he has recently been to my constituency. However, what people are telling me when I go around the country is that they understand the analysis but want to know where is the imagination that is needed when a Government see 1 million young people unemployed. Where is the charismatic leadership? Where is the air that something is really being done fundamentally to help these young people?
Vince Cable
I will describe in more detail, as will the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, some of the initiatives that we are taking on apprenticeships, for example, which reflect real imagination and real change.
Let me try to respond to some of the points that the hon. Member for Streatham made. First, he wholly misunderstands what is happening with the regional growth fund. More than half the projects are under way in the first wave of the regional growth fund. The factories have been built and the jobs are being created. Because of due diligence, the disbursement—I have had this confirmed—is still taking an average of three to six weeks. I am happy to pursue the individual cases that the hon. Gentleman raised. As I understand it—I may be wrong—the case that he dwelt on at some length is the result of the applicant having radically changed the status of their application, and we will happily look at that. However, I am not going to take lectures on the disbursement of Government money. I do not know whether he is aware of this, but the previous Government set up a £5 billion trade credit insurance scheme which, after two years, has managed to disburse £81,000. The regional growth fund is proceeding as predicted and suggested by Lord Heseltine and his team. We are following those processes. The factories are being built and the jobs are being created, and that is what matters.
The hon. Gentleman challenged me on procurement. I have been to Derby and talked to the people involved. Obviously, we are very concerned about what has happened in that case. The problem with procurement is that for a decade or more the public procurement policies pursued in this country were unbelievably short-sighted and legalistic. In the case of the Thameslink contract, we inherited a contract procedure based principles that did not allow for the wider effects on the British economy. However, that particular decision has been made. I have made it absolutely clear, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office made it clear two days ago, that we are going to approach public procurement in a different way. We are going to do it strategically and take account of supply chains. Of course we will operate within the law and will not be protectionist, but a lot can be done through public procurement that we are now going to pursue. My only question is why on earth Labour Members did not do this when they were in office if they care so much about it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend will know that I visited his constituency to look at the excellent work that has been done on vocational training. The purpose of the independent advice and guidance is to ensure that people get advice appropriate to their needs. For too long, we have assumed that the only route to prowess came through academic accomplishment. The Government believe that the work of people’s hands matters too, and that those with practical tastes and talents deserve their place in the sun.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that face-to-face contact and advice on careers is essential. Is it not the case that up and down this country schools are giving up on having a highly trained careers person in them and there is no access to an external schools careers service? Is that not sad for the kids in this country who do not have good, well-connected parents to give them the advice that they crave?
Mr Hayes
What preceded the position the Government have adopted was the Connexions service. I am not saying that Connexions did no good, but it certainly was not up to scratch. The skills commission inquiry said that it did not ensure that young people had good advice, Ofsted identified inconsistencies in provision and, as you know, Mr Speaker, Alan Milburn specifically called in his report for a national careers service. Of course face-to-face guidance matters, but it is not all that matters.
Education Bill
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Education Committee, makes a good point, but teachers are very much on the front line of maintaining discipline in the classroom. We conducted a survey of 116 local authority designated officers—LADOs—and its findings support the view that teachers are particularly vulnerable to false allegations. Some 23% of allegations against staff in all sectors were made against teachers, and almost half of those were found to be unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded. The proportion that related to other staff in schools was significantly low: from recollection I think that it was about 14%, compared with the 23% that applied to teachers.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister may recall that in the previous Parliament the Committee looked intensively at that very area, and I support much of what he says, but in that context we made a range of recommendations to ensure that teachers were protected from false allegations, and that head teachers knew what they were doing. Few head teachers confront the situation very often, but very often they suspend people unnecessarily and start the problem running in the first place. We recommended that a code of conduct should be at the heart of the change.
Mr Gibb
I agree with the hon. Gentleman and with the excellent work that he carried out when he was the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee and the Children, Schools and Families Committee in the previous Parliament. We have looked at the whole process of investigating teachers when they are subject to such allegations, and we are changing the guidance so that there is not a default position of automatic suspension once an accusation is made. We have also been speaking to the Association of Chief Police Officers about the speed of investigations, because we cannot have teachers waiting months or years before allegations are investigated and settled. We want to speed up the process, to remove the automatic and default position of suspension and to enable teachers to continue to have a connection with the school during the course of any allegation, so that they do not feel isolated while the process is under way.
Mr Sheerman
Is it not a fact, however, that the current Chairman of the Education Committee might have a much rosier view of the British press than I do? Anyone who listened to Radio 4’s “Today” programme this morning will have heard one of The Sun newspaper’s most senior journalists say that there should be no reform of British press regulation. If the hon. Gentleman has that rosy view of the press, I certainly want to put it on the record that I do not share it.
Mr Gibb
I really do not want to intervene or interfere in this debate between two such august hon. Gentlemen, but we have been careful to tread warily between the two interests: the interest of protecting teachers from the full force of false allegations before they are proven or charges are brought, and from the publicity that might accompany them, and the important interest of protecting press freedom. We are treading cautiously, and that is why we have not extended the measure to other parts of the children’s work force. We want to see how it works in the first instance before making any further decisions.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made the case for providing protection to groups other than teachers, but he accepted our cautious and targeted approach and suspected that the clause, even in its narrow form, might attract the close attention of, as he put it,
“people more erudite and noble than ourselves”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 22 March 2011; c. 557.]
He has been proven correct, but I am pleased to say that the substance of the provision returns to the House intact and with three important improvements. First, through amendment 5, the clause now makes it clear that tentative allegations that a teacher may be guilty of an offence should be treated in the same way as firmer allegations that they are guilty. That was always our intention because even—or, indeed, especially—tentative allegations can have a damaging effect on the teachers involved.
Secondly, through amendment 7, the clause now makes it clear that a judge who is considering an application for reporting restrictions to be lifted should take account of the welfare of both the teacher who is the subject of the allegation and the pupil or pupils who are the alleged victims. We will ensure through amendment 11 that where a teacher decides to identify himself or herself publicly as the subject of an allegation, reporting restrictions are lifted altogether. It is right that if a teacher effectively waives their right to anonymity by, for instance, writing in a newspaper about an allegation, others can also join the public debate.
The noble Lords echoed this House’s concern about clause 30, which would have removed schools and colleges from the duty to co-operate with local partners. My noble Friend Lord Hill met a number of peers during the summer to discuss the matter further and he then discussed the outcome of those conversations with me and the Secretary of State. We accept that retaining the duty would provide continuity while we implement the proposals of the Green Paper, “Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability.” That point was made forcefully in Committee. In another place, Lord Hill introduced amendments 18, 19 and 42 to remove from the Bill clause 30 and the related clause 31.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Vince Cable
I went to Brazil precisely to answer that question. My hon. Friend is quite right to say that we are starting from a weak position. As a result of neglect in the past, Britain’s share of imports into Brazil is far lower than those of Germany, France and Italy, for example, and we must remedy that. We are putting in a major effort in Brazil, through UKTI, to capture some of the opportunities, particularly those that are arising from the expansion of the oil and gas industries there.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has mentioned some exotic locations, but he did not mention the fact that he came to Huddersfield two weeks ago. Did he learn from that visit that export manufacturing is at the heart of getting the biggest bang for our buck, and that manufacturing for export counts for more in regard to the balance of trade? He talks about innovation and universities, but we do not want just seven—we want 133 innovation units.
Vince Cable
As a Yorkshireman myself, I would hesitate to call Huddersfield an overseas market, but it is certainly an outstanding centre of excellence. I enjoyed my visit there. We visited David Brown, one of the recipients of regional growth fund money and a very successful manufacturing exporter. I would also commend going further up the valley to Todmorden, where there is a brilliant British casting and forging company working flat out in our major export markets.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The English baccalaureate is a powerful nudge to encourage take-up in the sorts of subjects that lead students to be able to progress to good universities and great jobs, but it is important that Ofsted applies a nuanced measurement when it judges how schools are performing, and schools that do superbly in vocational, technical, cultural and other areas should expect Ofsted to applaud them as well.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will have seen that on Thursday the Skills Commission launched a report on the training of technicians. We desperately need more technicians, and there is great fear that the changes in the curriculum will squeeze out design and technology, which is, for many students, often the bridge to science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.
Michael Gove
That is a very fair point, and design and technology has many powerful champions, including the hon. Gentleman, but I would emphasise that the single most important thing that we can do if we are to ensure a generation of not just technicians but manufacturing leaders in future is make sure that we perform better in mathematics and that there are more students studying physics and chemistry. They are the key to success, and one of the reasons why the English baccalaureate has been so successful is that it has encouraged students to study those essential subjects.
Careers Service (Young People)
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Andy Burnham
Exactly, what have the Government done with that money? Where have they spent it? Those are questions for the hon. Gentleman to answer, not me.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I correct my right hon. Friend? Is it not a fact that face-to-face careers advice will be available? It will be available in the public schools, the independent schools and the most elite and privileged schools in the country; it just will not be available to most schools.
Andy Burnham
That is the point, is it not? This well-connected Cabinet think that everyone’s lives are like their own and that everyone can just call on a friend, uncle or whoever in a law firm or in the City. Sure, they will open a door—ring them up and they will give the advice. They live in a world, and constituencies sometimes, where that advice is readily available through informal family networks. They probably do not see the need for careers advisers. They have used them themselves, but do not see the need for them. However, there are many young people in the constituencies that we represent who cannot draw on those family networks and connections, who do not have role models to whom they can go and who perhaps have never had family members in the professions. They are the ones who need help to enter these closed worlds run often by a self-perpetuating elite.
Mr Gibb
I am not sure what service those people were receiving from Connexions, but there is no doubt that all the surveys showed dissatisfaction with the careers advice given by Connexions. There is more satisfaction with the advice that it gives to vulnerable young people on how to get back on track and back into the mainstream, and I acknowledge that that part of the service has been of a higher quality.
Mr Sheerman
Perhaps I can assist the Minister. When I was Chair of the Select Committee, whenever we considered that service we felt that it was very patchy up and down the country. That made us very angry in some circumstances, but it is, I think, called localism.
Mr Gibb
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the service is very patchy.
Our starting point was that careers advice needed to improve, and I think that there is unanimity across the House on that. We decided to split the provision of careers advice from the provision of advice to vulnerable young people. They are very different disciplines requiring different skills and different knowledge bases, so the decision was taken to provide an all-age careers service—the national careers service. That is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the service will be up and running from April 2012. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for the work that he has put in to delivering that service.
The duty to provide careers advice to young people will therefore be removed from local authorities and transferred, subject to the passage of the Education Bill, to schools from September 2012. That duty will require schools to secure access to independent impartial careers guidance for their pupils in years 9 to 11. As part of the consultation process, we are also considering whether there is a case for extending that duty down to year 8 or up to the age of 18.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to be called in this debate. I shall start with a confession: when I chaired the Education and Skills Committee—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
May I just say that we have nine Members left to speak, and that if the hon. Gentleman limits his speech to eight minutes it will help everybody?
Mr Sheerman
I was going to confess that when I was Chair of the Education Committee I never did an inquiry into careers, but in 2008 I was co-chair of the Skills Commission and we undertook a major inquiry into careers. Lord Boswell, Baroness Sharp and I were on the commission and we produced an all-party report, “Inspiration and Aspiration: Realising our Potential in the 21st Century.” Dame Ruth Silver, whom the Minister and anyone who knows anything about careers will know, the former principal of Lewisham college, was a very important influence on our inquiry, and she now chairs the Government advisory organisation that fell out with the Government recently.
We found pretty simple things. We found that, yes, information technology is very useful and that it will increasingly be used by many young people and older people, but at that stage—three years ago—it was used by only about 17% or 18%, which is not a lot. We also found that it was not enough in itself—face-to-face experience and trusted professionals were vital. There was no doubt that all the research, all the evidence that we took, showed it could not be done by technology alone, and that we blanked out many people by relying only on the technology and the internet.
We also found that yes, the careers service was not as good as it should have been. Anyone who does a PhD in future about the Conservatives’ enthralment with localism will have a wonderful time with the Minister’s speech tonight, because what is this localism? I intervened and said, “The trouble is that Connexions was patchy.” It is true that in every local government service I know, much is good in some things, but less is good in others and things are pretty average too much of the time. So how does one, believing in localism, raise the bar for careers advice? It is a great challenge, as Conservative Members will find. Pushing the responsibility back entirely on to schools, they will find the service very patchy indeed, especially if there are very few resources to some schools and better resources at others.
The Skills Commission report was accepted by all three parties and influenced all three manifestos, so there was the start of a good cross-party agreement on the need for high-quality careers advice—absolutely everyone from whom we took evidence agreed on that. But how do we push that forward? When we found that all the manifestos had been influenced by the cross-party consensus, we were very hopeful. But how did we get to the Government advisory group on the all-age careers service? The Labour Government of 2008 did not want an all-age careers service. They were eventually persuaded—again, there was cross-party consensus. All three main parties agreed on an all-age careers service, and they reconstituted it under a different name—the national careers service advisory group. I understand that it is now in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with the Education Department visiting, rather than its being in the Education Department. I have some concerns, and I think hon. Members will have some concerns, about careers being put very securely in BIS rather than in the Education Department.
Responsibility for providing face-to-face services is, however, being transferred to schools, without funding. I have the report from the advisory group on the all-age careers service and the comments by Dame Ruth Silver about the very real problems with it. It says:
“The new National Careers Service will include face-to-face services for adults, but not for young people. Instead, its service for young people will be confined to telephone- and web-based services. Responsibility for providing the face-to-face services is being transferred to schools, without any transfer of funding: the previous provision of around £200 million per annum for the service for young people has been allowed to disappear.”
That is the Government’s advisory group speaking. These are the leading people in the country advising on careers. The report continues:
“There are widespread concerns about the destruction of careers services across the country, with heavy staff redundancies. At a time when young people are facing massive changes in further and higher education, and new apprenticeships—as well as high youth unemployment—stripping out the professional help available to them is not only foolhardy; it is potentially damaging to young people’s lives and ultimately to the economy.”
What a damning report by the Government’s advisory committee! It cannot be right to go in this direction.
As a result of this kind of localism, schools with few resources will have very little careers advice. That is the truth. At the same time, local authorities up and down the land, under pressure of resources, are getting rid of their careers services or slimming them down to the very bone. We will not recreate a culture of high-quality careers service professionals in that way, even though the Government asked Ruth Silver to chair a committee to determine how to increase the professional quality of the careers service.
Everything was going in the right direction, with all-party consensus. Localism could have worked in this respect if the money had followed local responsibility and accountability. I worked closely with the Minister, who was a good member of the Education and Skills Committee for some years, when I chaired it. He is a reasonable man, and he will understand that this is not a party political issue. Good-quality careers advice is absolutely essential to everyone of whatever age. I am one of those people who believe that it is shame and a stain on our country to have a thing called NEETs. I believe that anyone who is not in education, employment or training of whatever age is a NEET, and we cannot have them.
School Funding Reform
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I say to the Secretary of State that “modern, fair and just” is a description that we all aspire to for educational funding, but is he not missing off his list—and adding—the danger, “highly centralised”? For many of us who believe in a good education system in our country, there is a real fear when the Department takes so much responsibility into the centre. Also, will he stop members of his party from criticising, in a very unfair way, Tim Byles, who is a fine public servant and did a very good job with Building Schools for the Future? It does no one any good to revile fine public servants of his character.
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes two very fair points. On the first, we want to strike the right balance between local accountability through local authorities and school autonomy. The consultation seeks to do that, and I will welcome his response to it. On the second point, let me place on record here, as I did in my letter thanking Tim Byles for all his public service, that I am immensely grateful to him for his work. I have criticisms of the way in which BSF was run, but those are not criticisms of Mr Byles or of any of his team; they are merely a reflection of the difference of opinion between myself and the previous Government on how capital spending should be prioritised. Let me underline that Mr Byles is an exemplary public servant, and I hope that we can continue to work with him in future in whichever role he pursues.