Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Public Bill Committees

Warwickshire College Group in my constituency, and other establishments that I have been speaking to up and down the country, would like to be able to do better and more on degree apprenticeships, but are being held back by the admin and financial burden; and it is that which will lead to much of the success or failure of these measures. It seems that there is currently no support, and that too much of the burden is falling on the institutions or the individuals. That will be the unravelling of what could be an important piece of legislation and policy to address the gap in our educational provision.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The salaries of further education providers and lecturers is far less than school teachers and university providers. I asked one of the witnesses in the evidence session whether the lack of the injection of cash mentioned by a previous witness would make these measures unsustainable. There is a problem with recruitment and retention, and many people can get better money out there actually doing vocational jobs, but we need these people to teach others vocational skills such as construction and hospitality. We already know that there is a skills shortage. Why are we not looking to address those particular issues, so that we can get our economy up and running? We support this legislation, but we have to hope that the finances are appropriated in the right places.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is totally right that one of the huge issues in the sector is the paucity of remuneration to further education college lecturers and staff. While going around the country, I have heard lots of anecdotal evidence about how difficult it is to recruit good staff. We clearly want the best, most inspiring people to deliver and impart information through their teaching. Whether it be in pure vocational education or in academic subjects, we want the best people, with expertise and talent, who can really inspire others to get into that subject and to succeed.

I hear, from talking to establishments around the country, that there is a huge remuneration or salary disadvantage—a difference between what people can earn vocationally in roles versus what they earn as lecturers in colleges. What I am hearing indicates that there is a 40% difference in pay between delivering a vocational role and teaching. That is really to the detriment of the next generation, and it is why we do not have the number of people coming into teaching as we should have across the board. I totally agree with my hon. Friend’s points, which highlight another immense challenge for the sector in the financial burden; the remuneration would ideally be greater.

Amendments 7 and 8 identify a real pressure point for the sector, in terms of the burden from this Bill. As I evidenced through the degree apprenticeships, institutions have to bear additional costs to deliver good-quality courses, but the yield—the cost cover—is not there. It is actually to the cost of the institution to provide them; it is the right thing to do, but it is coming at great cost to them to do that. With that, I will end my remarks.