Oral Answers to Questions

Gillian Keegan Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of occupations for which apprenticeships are available.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

I join you in your comments, Mr Speaker. My thoughts are with the family of Tommy McAvoy.

Thanks to this Conservative Government, nearly 70% of all occupations are accessible via an apprenticeship. That is a far greater reach than countries admired for their technical education such as Germany and Switzerland. I am sure that many Members joined the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and more than 60 ministerial colleagues out and about during National Apprenticeship Week. I was delighted to join Harry, Chloe and other EDF Energy apprentices off the coast of Blyth, as well as apprentices who are launching exciting careers at J.P. Morgan in the City. Apprenticeships are the route to a successful career, no matter where apprentices live or what they want to do.

[Andrew Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Last month, the Prime Minister visited the Harrogate Bus Company to view the new fleet of electric buses and to meet the company’s apprentices. Could my right hon. Friend detail how the Government will ensure that new apprenticeship routes are available in fast developing sectors of the economy such as digitisation and artificial intelligence, or the sectors that will deliver our decarbonisation pledge, such as those new zero-emission buses in Harrogate and Knaresborough?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support at the recent parliamentary apprenticeship fair. Importantly, our apprenticeship programme is future focused. It includes a new battery manufacturing technician apprenticeship, which will benefit electric buses, and others including charging point installation and electric vehicle maintenance. Whether through T-levels, higher technical qualifications or apprenticeships, there are more training opportunities in industries of the future than ever before, in everything from AI to net zero.

[Peter Aldous]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for those answers. Progress is being made, though the feedback that I am receiving is that the current maths and English functional skills requirement is an obstacle to a wider range of employers taking on apprentices. To remove that barrier, will my right hon. Friend consider embedding English and maths elements into the apprenticeships standards, so that they are relevant to the job role and employers can be confident that apprentices are acquiring the skills that they need to succeed?

[Gillian Keegan]

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education works closely with employers to ensure that all essential skills, including English, maths and digital, are embedded into apprenticeship standards, and it will continue to do so. We are also increasing funding by 50% to help more apprentices achieve up to a level 2 English or maths qualification alongside their apprenticeship if they do not already hold one, to help them get on in work and in life.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As someone who started his working life with on-the-job training at International Computers Limited—a company that is now part of Fujitsu, but we will not mention that name in this House—I very much support apprenticeships, particularly at the higher and advanced level that is required for occupations in information technology. What is the Secretary of State doing to address the worrying fall in the number of apprenticeship starts, particularly to get kids into higher and advanced level apprenticeships?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to learn that apprenticeship starts are up by 3% so far this year. That is because they are backed by record investment of £2.7 billion. Never before has a Government invested so much into high-quality apprenticeships and achieved so much in spreading opportunity across the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Like the questioner and the Secretary of State, I am very keen to increase the number of occupations. Two categories have perhaps not been considered. What discussions has she had with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment back home to ensure opportunities for new apprenticeships in farming and fishing?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on a very important point. We work with employers in farming and fishing, and we have a number of apprenticeship standards across those industries. We are always happy to work with any industry that sees an opportunity for more apprentices to be trained in their industry.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before I call the second question, Mr Speaker would like me to convey to the House his apologies for his unavoidable absence from questions this afternoon as he has to attend the Commonwealth service in Westminster Abbey, which is about to start at any minute now.

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[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

9. What progress her Department has made on ensuring that more schools achieve good and outstanding ratings by Ofsted.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

Under the last Labour Government, only 68% of schools were rated good or outstanding, letting down a generation of children. Thanks to this Conservative Government, that number now stands at nearly 90%. In the last year alone, 214,000 more children now attend good or outstanding schools, and I am delighted that this now includes the Lord Derby Academy in Knowsley, which I visited last week. Our plan to give every child a world-class education is working. Labour has no plan. Remember that it has twice stood on a manifesto to abolish Ofsted. It is clear that every time Labour gets into power, children’s education suffers.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Nine out of 10 of the schools in my constituency are good or outstanding, reflecting this Government’s commitment to high standards and the incredible hard work of the staff and the school leadership, but special schools have struggled to achieve the same in my constituency. How is my right hon. Friend helping them to get to where we want them to be, where they can all be good or outstanding?

[Gillian Keegan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that Basingstoke’s schools have been transformed over the past decade, up from just 52% rated good or outstanding under Labour. We have recently brought in two of our strongest specialist multi-academy trusts to drive improvement in special schools. Solent Academies Trust is now responsible for Dove House School, and Chiltern Way Academy Trust will shortly be taking over three local underperforming special and alternative provision schools, two of which will receive significant capital investment from the Department to support the education of vulnerable children.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

10. What assessment she has made of trends in the number of level 2 and 3 apprenticeship starts since the apprenticeship levy was introduced.

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[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

We are delivering the largest ever expansion of childcare in England’s history, which begins rolling out in just three weeks’ time, from 1 April. We did it before when we more than doubled the entitlements there had been under the previous Labour Government, and I am delighted to update the House that our latest projections show that more than 150,000 new funded places will be secured by early April. We expect that number to grow in the months ahead, saving parents more than £550 million in childcare costs.

April is just the first phase. From September, parents with children from the age of nine months until they start school will be able to benefit from that support. Only the Conservatives have a plan that hard-working parents can rely on as they grow their families. Labour has no plan, so why does it not support ours to give families the certainty they deserve?

[Darren Henry]

I recently visited Fairfield Spencer Academy in my Broxtowe constituency, where I met Craig Jones, who is doing good work with the Junior Adventures Group, a leading provider of school-age childcare. During my visit, I observed staff providing crucial support to children beyond regular school hours. However, it is evident that that level of support is not consistent around the country, and that funding for the school-age childcare sector needs reform. I welcome the £289 million for the wraparound care sector, but will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State commit to introducing a universal funding model linked to parent earnings, similar to that for the early years, to ensure providers remain affordable and sustainable?

[Gillian Keegan]

We are making wraparound childcare available for all parents who need it, and we are supporting hard-working parents to balance having a family and a successful career. Our £289 million investment will help schools develop exciting programmes before and after school, which will provide more flexibility for working parents. I am sure the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to keep him updated on progress.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

Neither the Secretary of State nor any Treasury Minister met representatives of the early years sector in the months before last year’s Budget announcement on childcare. Now, with just three weeks to go, parents, providers and even the Government’s own civil servants are sounding the alarm. More than seven in 10 providers say they will not offer additional places and a quarter say they are likely to close within a year. Will the Secretary of State now guarantee that all parents will be able to access the childcare places that she promised?

[Gillian Keegan]

Absolutely; I set that out in my topical statement. We are working with every local authority to ensure the places are available. I am glad the hon. Lady mentioned childcare, because it is yet another policy area that the Labour party has no plan for. We are delivering the largest expansion of childcare in history so that working parents of children from the age of nine months to the start of school will get 30 hours of childcare a week. The real question is: what is Labour’s plan? Nobody knows, because it does not have one. It is clear that the Conservatives are the only party with a plan for working parents.

[Bridget Phillipson]

There is one way we can find out what the public think: call a general election.

Last week, we heard another promise from the Chancellor for a new funding mechanism for early years providers. There was talk of hundreds of millions of pounds more for the sector, but strangely no news about where the promised £500 million will actually come from—there was nothing at all in the Budget documents. Will the Secretary of State tell us today where the money is coming from, or is this yet another reckless, unfunded pledge without a plan from the Conservatives?

[Gillian Keegan]

There would be no childcare on the table if the Labour party were in charge, so I urge all working parents to support the Conservative party, which has a plan for them. Like everything we do, the £500 million will be fully funded. It secures the rates in the future so that businesses up and down the country have the confidence to invest. The Labour party has absolutely no plan for childcare and for supporting working parents in this country.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

T4. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rightly championed childcare and early education. I congratulate her on the £500 million in this year’s Budget, on top of the billions committed last year to the sector—

[Mr Walker]

It is in the Red Book. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to show her where it is.

I urge the Secretary of State to keep pressing on some of the Education Committee’s other recommendations, including on extending family hubs, removing rates and VAT from childcare providers, and reforming tax-free childcare to drive take-up.

[Gillian Keegan]

This Conservative Government are backing this country’s brilliant childcare providers as we roll out our historic childcare offer. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, that is on top of the roll-out of universal services in family hubs. To give certainty to the early years sector, we have confirmed that average funding rates will increase over the next two financial years—as he stated, the details are in the Red Book—giving them the confidence to invest and expand. Only the Conservatives have a plan for hard-working parents.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Academic independence is central to a functioning democracy, so in light of the false accusations levelled at an academic on the board of UK Research and Innovation by the Secretary of State’s colleague, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and her subsequent apology, what action is the Secretary of State taking to assure academics that they remain free to make legitimate comments on issues of concern?

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course, academic independence and the ability to speak freely are very important—they are things that we hold dear, and that we must protect at all costs within our universities and academic institutions. That is why we passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, and it is why there is a free speech director in the Office for Students, who has taken up that post and will work to ensure we do whatever we can to protect those things in our country.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

T5. I have four grammar schools in my constituency, which provide an important and very popular element of a diverse education system. Therefore, will the Minister please commit today to continue her support of grammar schools, both now and in the future?

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[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State loves plans. What is her plan to reinvigorate and change the course of Ofsted?

[Gillian Keegan]

I was delighted to attend the Association of School and College Leaders conference alongside Sir Martyn Oliver, who announced the Big Listen, which is part of making sure that we get the cultural reforms required. I am concerned by reports that some teachers and headteachers feel that they are not listened to or are treated in a dismissive or rude manner. I hope everybody will engage fully with the Big Listen, because I think we need to make sure that Ofsted is respectful, and treats our service, and our teachers and headteachers, with respect.