Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Careers advice has long been the punchline for a joke, and many people found that the advice that they were given did not make sense to them at all. In our careers strategy, we are focusing on real, practical employer interactions so that the world of work can go into schools, and so that children can see what is out there, have their passions roused, and work out what is best for them.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The Minister will be delighted, because he has lost the punchline for his joke. He should go easy on the self-congratulation, given that the Government have presided over the disintegration of careers services for young people. Cuts have decimated council-led youth support and Connexions, and the Department has failed to include work experience in the curriculum. No wonder the CBI told it that the careers service was broken. Young people will need that help from the Careers & Enterprise Company to start repairing five years of damage. Will the Minister tell us what resources will be given to volunteer enterprise advisers—after all, only £17 million a year is going to the company—and just how many of them there will be for the thousands of schools and further education colleges that need them?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman talks as though there had once been a golden age of careers advice and service, but anyone could tell him that there has never been such a golden age. The missing piece in careers advice and guidance was employer interaction, and that is what the excellent Careers & Enterprise Company is setting up. As part of its strategy, it is rolling out enterprise advisers, and 30 local enterprise partnerships have signed up to be part of that. Every school will have an enterprise co-ordinator to link it to the world of work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

All our policies are a response to that report and many other reports that have rightly highlighted the need for continuing investment in adult education through people’s long and ever-changing working lives. One of the most significant measures we are taking is the introduction of an apprenticeship levy to double the level of funding for apprenticeships—apprenticeships that are available to adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s, not just to young people.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The 30% increase the Minister refers to covers quite a lot of apprenticeships, but the position for non-apprenticeships in higher education and further education is not looking good. He has not been able to give any detail for those estimates over the next four years. In the past four years, however, very large numbers of adult learners in HE—part-timers—are down 42%. The equality impact assessment shows that scrapping maintenance grants will impact badly on them. Research from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shows that adult learners are often highly debt-averse, which my own experience as an Open University tutor confirms. We welcome the measures for part-time student loans for 2018-19, but why has nothing concrete been done to address the decline in the meantime? May I ask the Universities Minister, through the Skills Minister, about the “Higher Education” Green Paper, which is currently a blank canvas on adult learners’ needs? Please make it good by addressing them and the economic benefits they will bring.

[Nick Boles]

That was a strange question, because the hon. Gentleman had to admit that there were a lot of things he welcomed to try to sneak in a question. It was a little puzzling that he seemed to dismiss our investment in apprenticeships as if it did not provide opportunities for adult learners. The truth is that apprenticeships provide the best opportunity for adult learners, better than any alternative, and we are also extending the possibility of student finance to part-time learners. I hope he welcomes that.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The story of the area reviews is one of a belated and, to be blunt, over-hasty response by the Government to a developing crisis that they should have seen coming over a period of time. I congratulate everyone who has spoken, including the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan). All the contributions were strong and compelling arguments for the vital importance of FE in the north-east. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing the debate in the first place.

Some of the common themes that have come out of the process have been about the nature of the north-east’s excellence, and the need not to jeopardise that in any way—not just the good manufacturing base, but also the service centre. It is not only for young people that that is important. In view of some of the statistics, such as that the average age of welders is 50, retraining and reskilling older people is crucial. I hope that the Minister did not miss the fact that virtually everyone who has spoken is worried about the unintended—I assume they are unintended—consequences of the over-hasty and rushed process I have referred to.

[Ian Lavery]

Is it not time that we cut to the chase? We have discussed Newcastle College, Northumberland College, Hartlepool College of Further Education, Bishop Auckland College, and colleges in Darlington, Durham and Teesside, among many others. All of them provide a brilliant education service to the people in their area. The reality is that we are here because we are extremely concerned that the area-based review will mean rationalisation or merger, which could both mean closure—or that it will simply mean closure. We are really concerned. We want some guarantees from the Minister that that will not happen in an area where the provision is much needed.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend repeats the eloquence that he and colleagues have displayed throughout the debate. Indeed, the questions he puts are essential, because what we have seen from the Government has been a continual process of cuts to funding both in-year and outside of it. An important point was made earlier about the inability to adjust in such a period of time. There has also been a lack of promotional budget for traineeships; cuts in the adult skills budgets, where the Government are still trying to find £360 million of efficiencies and savings; and the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance to which many colleagues have referred.

I am afraid that that theme continues, with the scrapping of higher education maintenance grants for some of the most disadvantaged students, which are crucial to many colleges in the north-east. I have looked at figures that show that will affect 380 students at Cleveland College of Art and Design, 377 at New College Durham and more than 50 at Bishop Auckland College—that is not to mention those at Northumberland, Tyne Metropolitan, Newcastle College and Newcastle Sixth Form College. Therefore a large number of colleges will be affected.

While all of that is going on, we have seen the Minister and the Government set timescales for the area reviews at unrealistic levels. The arbitrary nature of the way in which the reviews are being carried out does not point to a happy outcome, which is why in December the Public Accounts Committee expressed its concern that that will not deliver a more robust and sustainable further education sector. It said that

“The departments appear to see the national programme of area-based reviews, which they announced in July 2015, as a fix-all solution to the sector’s problems. But the reviews have the potential to be haphazard”.

That is rather understating it. On the basis of what we have seen and heard so far today, the words “bull” and “china shop” come to mind.

Colleges across the north-east have done great work to support not just young people, but older people in gaining skills and we have heard how vital they are to the sub-regional economy. That is why we cannot afford to see the Government’s area reviews damaging the link between colleges and businesses or the many decent networks of colleges and schools in the area. As I said to The Times Educational Supplement in October,

“FE is all about getting students”—

especially local people—

“into work in the local economy.”

However, the area reviews risk undoing all that hard work. In view of the potential for combined authorities in the north-east that may wish to take on skills, education and training powers, over-centralised, Whitehall-led area decisions taken now could hamper their ability to do so effectively. That is particularly the case for adult skills and community learning budgets, which are the ones most likely to be devolved under any combined authority umbrella settlement.

Reports from the many parties that have run reviews have raised concerns that there is no clear process for making difficult decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who is a former FE principal, expressed that view to FE Week in October. The steering groups look unwieldy and the reviews do not have to involve all post-16 providers. I am also concerned that groups of 25 are far too large. I would like the Minister to respond to those points.

We know that there are issues of financial inadequacy. The National Audit Office’s report shows that 29 colleges were inadequate in 2013 and that will rise to about 70 in 2015-16. That is a consequence of the many errors and failures of the previous Government, which have been continued by this Government. For many people, the idea that we have one law for sixth-forms and FE colleges and another for schools, academies and free school sixth-forms who are not participating in the process or affected by it, beggars belief. If the reviews were about the quality of teaching and maximising FE colleges’ apprenticeships and outreach in the community, surely they should include all education and training providers. That point was made by Susan Pember, who was a distinguished civil servant in the Minister’s Department until not so long ago. As Martin Doel from the Association of Colleges and others have said, it is illogical that the process should continue without them.

All of the concerns raised have been highlighted in our discussion and it is imperative, as we have heard, that the local geography and economic conditions are taken into account in such reviews. In the north-east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland demonstrated, the changes may be very harmful to the social fabric and social mobility of young people.

It is interesting that when the ideas for mergers and so on came to the Minister’s distinguished predecessor as Minister for Skills, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), I am led to believe that he quietly shooed them away. He did that for a good reason, because he represents a rural constituency and therefore he knew well what some of the problems would be. The area reviews look set to force shotgun marriages on many colleges, with closures and mergers being put ahead of geography and economic sense.

It is also a pity, as my hon. Friends have said, that there has not been a broader role for learners, trade unions and the whole range of people affected by the changes. The National Union of Students has taken its own initiative and convened roundtables to mirror some of the reviews. An early report from its area review in the Tees Valley says:

“The travel infrastructure across Tees Valley needs to be improved significantly, particularly if learners are expected to travel further. At the moment, many colleges have to put on buses to enable students to come to college. With funding cuts and potential for a wider catchment of learners, this is not a sustainable model.”

It also mentioned an issue that we have not touched on today:

“We have significant concerns about the future of student support services, such as counselling, pastoral care and childcare, which are vital for widening access…and a commitment to ongoing support for disabled students…with physical and learning disabilities.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned the potential costs. Although the Minister said yesterday that he did not want such things to happen, we all know about the law of unintended consequences, so I hope that, if he does not answer that point today, he will write specifically to hon. Members to explain who will pay.

The truth of the matter is that all of the colleges we have heard about play a crucial role in partnering with businesses to provide the training and skills needed for the future in the north-east. We have seen that in the examples given and I could list many more, but I do not wish to add to those amply provided by my colleagues. We need to see the potential skills shortages and careers advice issue addressed, because they are crucial to sustaining those colleges. I was interested to see the recent Newcastle City Council taskforce report, which criticised standards as being inconsistent.

The experience of careers advice and training falls short not just in the north-east but across the country, yet the Government have continued their cuts, restricting the support it is possible to give young people. Just yesterday in the Chamber, the Secretary of State had no answer to my question on the adequacy of limited funding and volunteers for a national careers service and the area reviews may do little to help and plenty to hinder promoting FE in careers advice.

Critically, we cannot afford to let talented and skilled young people, and older ones, fall by the wayside because their colleges have closed and the funding is not there to develop the skills needed to boost regional and sub-regional economies. The Government’s area reviews, as they stand at the moment, are littered with problems and miss key components—they are simply a cost-cutting exercise. As we have heard, FE in the north-east is vital to improving the regional economy, so the Government must ensure that closures, mergers and cost-cuttings do not take place and do not destabilise the balance between education and work and that students do not lose the opportunity to go to a college near them. Otherwise, the Minister is in danger of presiding over a series of dysfunctional Rubik’s cube processes, which could do permanent damage to local economies and learners’ life chances in the north-east and elsewhere.

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate and, indeed, thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for securing the debate because I hope that it gives me an opportunity to reassure her on a number of points.

The hon. Lady said that the process of area reviews is destabilising colleges in the north-east. What destabilises colleges in not only the north-east but across the country is the Labour party holding an Opposition day debate in advance of the spending review and declaring that further education budgets will be cut by between 25% and 40%. Of course, what we actually saw in the spending review was a protection in flat cash terms of both the adult and community learning budgets and the funding rate for 16 to 19-year-olds—something that nobody in the college sector, the Opposition or anywhere else had predicted.

What also destabilises is hearing a series of speeches—with a few honourable exceptions, which I will come back to—from Members in which they wave appalling prospects of forced closures and people having to trudge hundreds of miles through the snow to get to a course, when absolutely nothing could be further from the truth and when they have literally no evidence at all for any of the fears they are trying to awake.

There are two approaches to opposition. The first is the approach that was admirably modelled by the hon. Members for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who said that she, in principle, could support the idea of an area review if it was genuinely intended to create stronger institutions that would be better able to supply the skills training required to meet the region’s skills needs. We also heard constructive suggestions from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who has now left. However, I would say to the other Opposition Members that it does nothing at all for their colleges or the students who they claim to represent to terrify them into thinking that the Government are somehow slashing budgets when we are not or closing institutions when there is no proposal to do so.

[Mr Marsden]

rose—

[Helen Goodman]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

Opposition Members just simply assume that every potential change is a threat and is somehow going to close a vital—

[Mr Marsden]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. You will observe that we have a considerable amount of time for the Minister to answer interventions, but he has refused to take any. Is it in order for him to do so, or is it just simply impolite not to?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

It is certainly in order for him to decide whether to take interventions. Whether it is polite or impolite is for others to judge.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I very much enjoyed listening to the hon. Gentleman’s question, and I welcome the work of the all-party parliamentary group. We are, of course, already teaching computing throughout all the key stages of the national curriculum, having introduced coding last year. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the important role of our education system in preparing young people for the world of work and for 21st-century Britain, and I look forward to hearing more from the all-party parliamentary group.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Four years after scrapping work experience at key stage 4, shredding Connexions and local careers service funding, and giving schools careers advice responsibilities but no resources, the best that the Secretary of State could do yesterday was blame schools for outdated snobbery over apprenticeships. Is it not a fact that she has been stung into action by the continued barrage of concern—the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce spoke of a “national embarrassment”—and that the Minister for Skills needs some sticking plaster for his appearance before the Select Committee this afternoon as part of its urgent inquiry on careers advice?

Will the Secretary of State ensure that careers advice and apprenticeship take-up are included in Ofsted’s assessment? Does she think that volunteer enterprise advisers—however hard-working—and a mere £20 million for her enterprise company will undo the damage that we see in the Government’s previous record?

[Nicky Morgan]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about previous records, he should think about the previous record of his own party in government, when it completely failed to prepare young people for the world of work. In fact, it perpetuated fraud on them by allowing them to do technical and professional qualifications that did not lead either to satisfying the requirements of employers or to university. He clearly failed to listen to my earlier answer in which I said that Ofsted already inspects on careers advice and almost £70 million is being spent during this Parliament in relation to careers.

Student Maintenance Grants

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls upon the Government to abandon its policy on replacing maintenance grants with loans for lower income students.

The Government’s proposal to scrap maintenance grant support for disadvantaged students and replace it with a loan system is not an isolated proposal. It is part of a pattern that can be seen in other areas of government. It mirrors, for example, changes that were debated eight days ago, which removed NHS bursaries for nurses and other staff, and it has been foreshadowed by changes that the Government have made in support and protection for further education over the past three or four years. The truth of the matter is that the Government have ducked and dived to avoid further debate on their direction of travel on the grants issue, and on freezing the payment threshold for five years, which is not specifically part of the regulations although it is referred to in the assessment that comes with them. That is also likely to hit disadvantaged students.

We have called this debate today to hold the Government to account over this major issue. They have refused to bring these changes to the Floor of the House themselves, and preferred instead to sneak them through in delegated legislation, which can be debated and voted on by only a handful of MPs.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is particularly shameful that this proposal did not appear in the Conservative party manifesto? It is being sneaked into the House of Commons and without the knowledge of the people of this country.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend makes a striking point. That is only one of a series of delinquencies that I want to move on to.

The Conservatives have shied away from the light of debate, challenge and scrutiny on this issue, preferring instead to use a legislative sleight of hand to ensure that the sweeping changes were made in Committee in the hope that no one would notice. All the way through this process, they have been defensive. They have been less than candid and they have systematically resisted the path of openness. There was little detail to be had when the Chancellor first mooted this change in the summer, and not much more in the autumn statement. It was only when the National Union of Students raised the alarm about the impact of the process and threatened a judicial review over the lack of consultation and the failure to publish the interim equality assessment—which the Government have still not done—that a separate equality impact assessment was slipped out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Secretary of State of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, wrote to the Business Secretary explaining our concerns and asking for a full debate on this matter. This was reflected in early-day motion 829, which attracted a number of cross-party signatures. However, the Business Secretary’s reply largely ignored the issues. The issue of failing to bring the matter to the Floor of the Commons was raised by the shadow Leader of the House in December, and at that time the Leader of the House intimated that there should be a debate on the Floor of the House, but no such debate has taken place. A question from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) was ducked by the Prime Minister last Wednesday. Colleagues raised the issue again in last week’s business questions, and I put a series of detailed questions to the Minister in the Delegated Legislation Committee. I and the other members of the Committee would like to see the responses to those questions in due course.

It is perhaps no surprise that The Independent led today on the way in which this Government have been using statutory instruments systematically to force through profound and controversial changes to the law without proper debate and scrutiny. Nor is it surprising that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey told the newspaper:

“This is arbitrary rule that massively decreases the power of the Commons to effectively scrutinise the Government.”

The equality impact assessment was slipped out with a relative lack of ceremony at the end of November. As I said last week, this is the document that almost dare not speak its name, not least because the detailed evidence of the negative impact was tucked away in its central pages, to which I will refer later, and was rather belied by the bland conclusions appended to the front of the document. What is driving these panic measures from the Government—the £1.5 billion raid on grants and the threshold fees—is their belated recognition that the whole set of financial assumptions about repayment that underpinned their trebling of fees in 2012 is producing a black hole for them and for future taxpayers.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Did not a Tory Minister stand at the Dispatch Box in 2012 and assure us, on the question of tripling the fees, that increased maintenance grants and the national scholarship programme would protect students from the poorest backgrounds? Now the Government are scrapping both and trying to sneak the measures through. Is this not an absolute betrayal?

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he obviously has the power of telepathy, because I intend to refer to that later.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend refers to the impact statement. Does he agree that, in 2016, it is a scandal that the impact statement, which the NUS had to drag out of the Government and which confirms that the measures will disproportionately affect black and minority ethnic students, women and disabled people, does not merit a proper debate and vote in this House?

[Mr Marsden]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, who was a distinguished Schools Minister. His points are absolutely valid, and I shall deal with them in more detail in due course. These measures are not simply incidental tinkering with existing financial regulations.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Can my hon. Friend confirm that 45% of the student loan book, amounting to some £5 billion, is suspected to be delinquent in some way or other? These measures would add a further £1.6 billion to that amount. Are not the Government building up a huge unfunded liability in their national accounts?

[Mr Marsden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has great experience in these matters. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and other organisations have commented on that matter.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is wonderful to hear Labour Members talking about unfunded liabilities. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the £1.5 billion cost of this measure, which is the money that will be saved. Is it his party’s policy to reverse the measure, and if so, where would it get the money from?

[Mr Marsden]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is so looking forward to the arrival of a Labour Government that he is already asking us detailed questions on this matter. I would remind him, however, that today is a day for the Government to be held to account for their failures.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Marsden]

I am sorry, but I must try to make some progress. I will take more interventions later.

These measures are typical of the ideology-driven but evidence-lite approach that this Government have too often employed. This is a major reversal of policy only four years after they hailed those maintenance grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The statistics from the House of Commons Library tell me that the measures will affect around 500,000 of England’s most disadvantaged students. This amounts to a Domesday book listing the numbers of students who will lose their grants under the new rules. Universities across England, old and new, will be affected, as well as other higher education institutions. Further education colleges will also be affected, because they make an increasingly valuable contribution—10% and rising—to higher education, and a disproportionate number of their students will be affected.

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

rose—

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Marsden]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and then briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

[Andrew Gwynne]

I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this debate to the House of Commons so that we can have a vote on this important issue. He has talked about the impact on universities and colleges. Perhaps he has seen the information released by UCAS in December that shows that, even today, twice as many young people from advantaged backgrounds as from disadvantaged backgrounds go to university. How does he think removing £3,500-worth of grant a year is going to assist social mobility?

[Mr Marsden]

The reality is that it will not. I will have more to say about social mobility later.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Marsden]

No, I will not give way again, as I have already indicated. A large number of people wish to speak, and I need to give them a chance to do so.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Marsden]

Yes, I have already indicated that I would do so.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does my hon. Friend remember that, in the last Parliament, the Government abolished the education maintenance allowance for 16 to 18-year-olds going into further education? They are now abolishing the maintenance grant for poorer people going into higher education, yet they managed to find tax cuts for millionaires in the last Parliament. Does this not show that this Tory Government are really not concerned about the poor and disadvantaged people in this country, whether in relation to housing, to universal credit, to disability or to education? They just don’t care.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend refers to the abolition of the EMA—

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Marsden]

No, I am sorry, I will not give way. I have already said that.

The EMA is not the subject of our debate today, but that point illustrates the problems affecting further education colleges. There can be a cumulative effect for the future of such colleges because these measures can result in people no longer applying to them. That is why the Association of Colleges said in a specific response to these regulations:

“We have real concerns about the proposed change as many of the students may never earn enough to pay back the money and the policy does appear to penalise poorer students.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Marsden]

I have already indicated that I will not give way at the moment, but I will do so in a little while.

The expansion of higher education opportunities in further education colleges after 1997 was one of the most significant advances made under the Labour Government in this area, and it was a crucial part of beginning to address the lack of balance for higher education in the English regions outside the areas of the traditional clusters of long-established universities. It was part of a joined-up strategy to embed higher education and skills in our local economies and via the regional development agencies at that time. My local Blackpool and The Fylde College gained an excellent new higher education block in that period, where more than 2,800 students are now in higher education. We know that many further education students come from precisely the non-traditional backgrounds for participation in higher education.

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is deploying the same argument that was deployed against the introduction of tuition fees, which was carried out by the previous Labour Government and developed by the coalition, but we have actually seen an increase in the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university. His argument, therefore, just does not stack up.

[Mr Marsden]

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman listens as I talk further about the way in which these things have changed, he will understand that what was introduced in 2012 and the explanations—I will not call them apologies—that his Government gave for tripling tuition fees were based on a series of quid pro quos, all of which they have now abandoned. The pattern I have talked about is also seen in the number of people doing higher education in the so-called “post-92” universities and receiving the maintenance grant. That is why million+, whose membership contains a significant number of those post-92 universities, has expressed its alarm in the briefing it prepared for today’s debate. It said that

“by virtue of nothing more than household income, some students will be saddled with debts far in excess of their fellow students.”

It continued:

“the freezing of the earning repayment threshold for five years will also exacerbate this problem and will hit lower earning graduates the hardest.”

My former colleague Bill Rammell, who was a higher education Minister and is now vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, made precisely those points in an excellent piece for Politics Home today.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Erdington is one of the poorest constituencies in England, but it is rich in talent, and maintenance grants mean a great deal to students who want to get on—42% are dependent on them. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are both breaking a promise, and dashing the hopes and dreams of a generation of strivers?

[Mr Marsden]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, he comes from and speaks for a distinguished part of the west midlands, which is in the process of trying to gain control over areas of activity in their local economies. What the Government are doing for people in Birmingham and elsewhere is confounding their own devolution prospects.

[Helen Whately]

rose—

[Mr Marsden]

No, I will not give way at this stage, but I might a little later.

We know now, thanks to a question I tabled to the Minister for Universities and Science to establish the extent of this issue, how many people will be directly affected by the withdrawal of the maintenance grant in further education. The statistics show that some 33,700 English applicants were awarded maintenance grants for higher education courses at further education colleges. Within that 33,700 figure, we have a roll call of the English regions, where it is not just the individuals but the local economies, through the growth of skills there, that have benefited from this expansion of higher education and further education.

Let me cite some of the statistics that the Student Loans Company has produced: in the north-west, Blackburn College has 1,842 students on maintenance grant; in the north-east, Newcastle College Group has 1,669; and in the south-west and Cornwall, Cornwall College has 931. The list goes on, but a crucial subset comprises the numbers in those areas where, as I just mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), the Government are encouraging combined authorities and local enterprise partnerships to take up their devolution offers and, therefore, potentially to have control of or take a role in higher skills initiatives. Greater Manchester has 410 on maintenance grants at Stockport College and 1,060 on grants across The Manchester College network. In Merseyside, 542 in total are on grants at The City of Liverpool College and the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts. In Leeds, 1,604 are on these grants, spread between Leeds City College, Leeds College of Music and Leeds College of Art. London has a huge further education sector, which caters to so many of the groups identified in the equalities assessment, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said. At a time of pressure already, from area reviews and cuts to ESOL—English for speakers of other languages—this new proposal could be toxic. If the effect of these changes, introduced without consultation, is to blunt those skills and that empowerment, this Government will be cutting off at the knees the very strategies for English devolution, for skills and for social mobility that they claim to be promoting.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Last week, the Prime Minister said that his Government’s mission was

“to look each…child in the eye, and say, ‘Your dreams are our dreams. We’ll support you with everything we’ve got.’”

Does my hon. Friend agree that scrapping grants to half a million people, including more than 5,000 young people in Tower Hamlets in my constituency, is a cap on aspiration and that it stinks of hypocrisy?

[Mr Marsden]

I certainly agree with the point about the potential threat to my hon. Friend’s constituents, and it underlines what I said about London.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Marsden]

No, I will not give way until I have finished dealing with the intervention. On my hon. Friend’s point about hypocrisy, it is not for me to judge, but I would recall that fine old English proverb, “Fine words butter no parsnips.”

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

On social mobility, will the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that more and more people from disadvantaged backgrounds are accessing higher education? That has increased from 13.6% when the Labour Government were in power to more than 18% this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

Of course I welcome that fact. The point I am trying to establish today, which I hope the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will accept, as I am actually trying to help them, is that these are fine words about an increase in social mobility and all the rest of it, but things will go in the opposite direction if they do not reconsider this measure.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Marsden]

I am sorry but a great number of people wish to speak. I have taken a number of interventions already and I really must make progress.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just so that the House is aware, on present trends there will be only about an hour in total for Back-Bench speeches and 18 people are wanting to speak. I am underlining the potency of the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made from the Front Bench.

[Mr Marsden]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There is a nudge factor here; it is a nudge away from progress, from that regional growth and from those opportunities for groups and individuals who traditionally have been debt averse. Asking people on higher education courses at further education colleges to take on up to £50,000-worth of debt in areas such as the north-east, where in some parts that sum could equate to the price of a small house or flat, concerns colleges such as New College Durham. Its principal, John Widdowson, has said that

“nudge can work both ways—especially for people who’ve signed up for foundation courses and are considering going for honours—the more complex you make the funding process the more it can seem a barrier.”

Those sorts of concerns were recently echoed by the Office for Fair Access. But it is the individual life chances that may be blighted or disrupted by these changes that should weigh heavily on all of us, which is why the NUS and its student bodies have been so passionate in campaigning against this change. For me, all those individual cases in FE are summed up by the email I received only yesterday from a student in Blackpool, who said that she would like to thank me

“for defending the students who will be affected by the loss of grants. I am from Blackpool and in my second year of my degree with UCLan, and a married mature student with two children.”

She said that she had been plagued by illness as a child, which is why she was having to study in her late 30s, and stated:

“The complete U-turn by the Government who said education should not just be for the privileged and should not exclude the poor has now done exactly that.”

The changes will also affect significant numbers of students in the traditional university sector, including 14,000 at Manchester Metropolitan University, 8,000-plus at the University of Manchester, nearly 11,000 at Nottingham Trent and 3,738 at King’s College London. As I have said, it is a potential list of lost opportunities.

We can only speculate on what impact the regulations will have on future cohorts of students. The National Education Opportunities Network and the University and College Union are currently undertaking research with more than 2,000 final year A-level and level 3 students to look at how costs influence the higher education choices that those students make. The interim findings from that research show that more than half the students who are deciding not to go into HE are taking that decision because of the lack of direct financial maintenance grant support that they had envisaged for the year ahead.

The equality assessment states:

“At an aggregate level there is no evidence that the 2012 reforms, which saw a significant increase in HE fees and associated student debt levels, has had a significant impact in deterring the participation of young students from low income backgrounds.”

That is now debateable, because the safety net of maintenance grants, which was introduced in 2012 with that tripling of fees, is now being removed. That is why, in her letter praying against the regulations, the shadow Secretary of State wrote:

“Labour is concerned this change won’t improve Government finances in the long term.”

That echoes the view of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said:

“The replacement of maintenance grants by loans from 2016–17 will raise debt for the poorest students, but do little to improve government finances in the long run.”

The IFS states that, in the short term, Government borrowing will drop by around £2 billion a year, because current spending on grants counts towards current borrowing, while current spending on loans does not. In the long run, savings could well be less than that. The amount of money lent to students will rise by about £2.3 billion for each cohort, but the IFS says that only around a quarter of those additional loans are likely to be repaid. In the long run, therefore, the net effect is a reduction in Government borrowing by around £270 million per cohort, and a 3% decline in the Government’s estimated contribution to higher education. In a fair and balanced way, the IFS said:

“Students from households with pre-tax incomes of up to £25,000 (those currently eligible for a full maintenance grant) will have a little more ‘cash in pocket’…But they will also graduate with around £12,500 more debt, on average, from a three-year course. This means that students from the poorest backgrounds are now likely to leave university owing substantially more to the government than their better-off peers.”

It also states:

“The poorest 40% of students going to university in England will now graduate with debts of up to £53,000 from a three-year course, rather than up to £40,500. This will result from the replacement of maintenance grants”.

As I have already said, when the Government tripled tuition fees in 2012, they tried to sweeten the pill, by talking up the centrality of the maintenance grant to ensure that the most disadvantaged could still access higher education. They promised three things: a national scholarship programme; the maintenance grants for the disadvantaged programme; and the earnings-related threshold that would be uprated with inflation. The then Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said:

“The increase in maintenance grant for students from households with the lowest incomes, the National Scholarship Programme, and additional fair access requirements…should ensure that the reforms do not affect individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds disproportionately.”

That is what the Minister’s predecessor in the Conservative-led Government said in 2011-12, but the regulations that the Government passed in Committee last week will disadvantage the same groups of students that the Government promised to protect two years ago. David Willetts previously lauded the measures as a quid pro quo for the trebling of tuition fees, saying:

“Our proposals are progressive, because they help to encourage people from poorer backgrounds to go to university, because of the higher education maintenance grant, and because of the higher repayment threshold.”——[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 940.]

Now all three elements of those promises have been broken by this Government. The Minister’s colleague, now Lord Willetts, must be revolving in his ermine at the way in which his promises have been so lightly regarded by the Government.

The Government and their predecessors set great store by the principle of “nudge”—actions that persuade people to change their behaviour for the better. Let me remind the Minister that it is possible to nudge people away from desirable outcomes rather than towards them. A new Department for Business Innovation and Skills study shows that more than half the applicants said that they had been put off university by the costs. That is backed up by the Sutton Trust, which said:

“Shifting grants to loans may move them off the balance sheet, but it could also put off many low and middle income students and tip the balance against their going to university. Since grants were reintroduced, there have been significant improvements”—

and we welcome that, but those will be—

put at risk by today’s Budget plans.”

Research from the National Union of Students, which was published last week by Populus, shows that parents are concerned that the Government’s plans to scrap the maintenance grant will discourage their children from applying to university. Two fifths of those with a combined income of £25,000 or less believe that to be the case. The range of the groups affected by the changes is daunting. The assessment concedes that black and minority ethnic students in particular will be disproportionately worse off. On older learners, it says:

“Mature students will be disproportionately impacted by the policy proposals to remove the full maintenance grant and replace with additional loan as well as the freezing of targeted grants.”

The Government have also conceded that disabled people will be disproportionately affected by the decision not to protect the real-terms value of disabled students allowances. The assessment spells out the potential for discrimination because of religious beliefs, stating that there is evidence to suggest that there are groups of Muslim students whose religion prohibits them from taking out an interest-bearing loan. Finally, the impact assessment also states that female students will be particularly affected by the freezing of childcare grants, parents’ learning allowances and employment and support allowances, given their significant over-representation in these populations.

Further to that, the scrapping of 24+ loans in further education is particularly relevant to the case before us today, because it is indicative of what has happened in previous circumstances when the Government have gone down this road. As the Minister knows, the Government released figures in October 2015 that showed clear evidence of the deterrent impact on learners that I and others warned about when these loans were introduced as replacements for grants in January 2013. The figures showed that in 2014-15 only £149 million of the £397 million allocated for the process had been taken up. It is no wonder that people in the FE community have lamented the lost opportunity of £250 million that could have helped some of our most disadvantaged learners. The very group of people who benefited from the concessions given in 2013 by the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—that those who went on access to HE courses would have the outstanding amount written off in their access course loan—face another knock back. The damning details from the Government’s own impact assessment should surely give Ministers pause for thought, given that they threaten to affect the most debt-averse groups.

Worryingly, it appears that the Government have yet to produce an up-to-date estimate of the impact that the shift from grants to loans will have on the resource accounting and budgeting charge, which calculates the cost to the Government of the higher education funding system, based on how much students are ultimately expected to repay. Having heard the evidence that we have presented so far and the comments from around the Chamber, will the Government tell us why, if they were so confident about these policies, they did not bring them to the Floor of the House? More to the point, why did they not consult independent experts and various representative organisations? Why did they not commission research from any of the reputable independent policy bodies?

Last month, along with a number of other MPs, I sat in the corridor of this place listening to hundreds of students who had come to lobby us. Their message was consistent: scrapping maintenance grants will leave people struggling to go to university. People in the Chamber today have talked about consequences and people will talk about their own experiences. I was a tutor for the Open University for 20 years and I know that many of the students whom I taught had been put off higher education at an earlier age by the costs. Such things do not alter just because we are now in the digital world of the 21st century, and the impact of the changes, particularly on mature students, cannot be divorced from the precarious position of so many of those who study part time in HE.

Statistics published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency have shown that the number of first-year part-time students in 2014-15 is down 6% on previous years. The number of part-time higher education students since the Conservatives came into office has fallen by nearly 40%. No wonder the NUS is exasperated about that, and it relates it to the trebling of student fees since 2012 for England and English students in HE in Wales and Scotland. No wonder also that the president of Universities UK and the vice-chancellor of the University of Kent, Dame Julia Goodfellow, said that the decline in part-time numbers was a serious concern. I acknowledge, as they do, that the introduction of maintenance loans to some part-time students from 2018-19 announced by the Government is welcome, but in the meantime the nudge factors are very strong against such study. No wonder the Open University has also expressed its alarm, commenting on the Minister’s higher education Green Paper that flexible learning provision is also at the heart of Government policy development. Are not those concerns precisely why we need a proper discussion and are they not reasons why we need a commitment to bring a Bill to this House? I invite the Minister to give that in his response.

There is a lack of balance, as well as a nudging towards negative outcomes, and the issue will not go away. It is not surprising that connections have been made between the specific ways the Government have tried to dodge scrutiny in this matter. No wonder the Minister appeared relatively ill at ease in Committee, but to tell the truth perhaps the blame lies elsewhere. The article in The Independent reminds us that it was the Chancellor who tried to use a statutory instrument to smuggle through his tax credit changes, and we all know what happened to them. The Chancellor is proud of promoting himself as the Government’s master builder—all his rhetoric is shot through with the image. He preens as he boasts of the march of the makers and of how the Government, on his watch, is fixing the roof while the sun is shining, but the truth is that the Chancellor is a man with whom we always need to read the small print. He has consistently missed many of his debt and other targets, and as far as building a secure future for Britain’s learners is concerned, he is Mr Dodgy, whose actions are unlikely to get a certificate from the Federation of Master Builders. While the sun is shining, he has dislodged slates on the way down and has disguised cuts to adult skills as efficiencies, as his Newspeak officials call them.

He is pushing those students off the ladder of social mobility. It is time for him to get real in the real world, where the elasticity of demand eventually snaps and where stretching the envelope can finally break it. The direction of travel is threatening to deliver not a northern powerhouse but a northern poorhouse, undermining his regional strategy. We want no part of the narrative of failure, nor should this House, and that is why this afternoon we are calling again for Ministers to think again, to support the motion, and to annul the misguided regulation that this Government tried to hide away.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I entirely agree with the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. One of the great opportunities that this proposal offers is for sixth form colleges to become part of academy groups, to become the sixth form for those academy groups and to thrive.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise that, although the Government finally allowed sixth form colleges welcome VAT relief through their becoming academies, it will not alter the cuts so far, which mean that three quarters of sixth form colleges have had to slash language and STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—provision? Of course, they still face a real-term funding cut until 2020. Is it not critical that their excellence and innovation should not now be curbed by DFE micromanagement of them as academies?

[Nick Boles]

Last week—perhaps it was the week before—the hon. Gentleman was shroud waving, suggesting that there would be cuts of somewhere between 25% and 40% to the per pupil funding for 16-to-19 education. I did not hear him welcome the Chancellor’s confirmation that it will remain flat cash throughout this Parliament. It is, of course, important that sixth form colleges can prosper, which is why we introduced this proposal.

Further Education

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The best of today’s debate has been the powerful advocacy we have heard from Members from all parts of the House for further education in their constituencies and colleges.

I praise in particular the Labour Members who have spoken. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) said that we were right to consider the devolution issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) gave practical examples of good work in her sixth forms and FE colleges.

There was a powerful speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who drew on his experience as a former skills Minister. He pointed out that the Government have said very little about the completion figures for apprenticeships and the calibre of apprenticeships. He also touched on the huge collapse in adult learning. Although that is not central to the motion, it is another symptom of the failure of the Government to address this issue holistically.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) talked about the funding uncertainties. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) talked about the almost apocalyptic feeling among many FE colleges. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) cited the situation in her college and rightly shamed the Secretary of State for her reliance on scaremongering about balloon artistry in her speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) asked how we can deal with the savage cuts to colleges. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) said that FE had helped to transfer—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State chunters from a sedentary position. If she wants to claim that she did not refer to balloon artistry, she is welcome to do so.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am happy to say that I mentioned courses such as marzipan modelling and balloon artistry, which were funded by the Labour Government. Young people were led to think that they were gaining qualifications that would stand them in good stead in their education, but they did not.

[Mr Marsden]

If the Secretary of State checks the facts, she might find that they are rather different.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) is a powerful advocate for the role of FE in her empowering sixth-form colleges. As a former WEA tutor, I was pleased that she spoke about the importance of the WEA.

Regardless of her artistry, balloon or otherwise, I found the Secretary of State’s speech rather sad and waffly, with a dash of Europhobia thrown in. [Interruption.] I am sorry that Ministers do not like that, but it is true. The Secretary of State talked about not showing her hand before the spending review. The problem is that most of us do not believe that she had a hand to show in the first place. The way in which she talked about apprenticeships without mentioning any of the difficulties or complexities reminded me of the old sitcom, “Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width”.

The Secretary of State did not look at the unsustainable division between school education, which has ring-fenced funding, and FE, which faces growing marginalisation and an ever-greater burden of cuts. The area review of local FE provision is adding to the instability in the sector and there is unclear information from the Government on funding applications. Further education for 16 to 19-year-olds was the most cut area of education in the last Parliament, with its funding falling by 14% in real terms. That was a combination of lower budgets to support 16 to 19-year-olds after the scrapping of the EMA and a direct funding cut to colleges of about 10% in real terms. This year, per-student funding in colleges and sixth forms has faced a real-terms cut and stands at £4,000.

It is a pity that the Secretary of State did not come out of her press release bubble a little more and talk about what other people in the sector are saying. Many Members referred to the open letter that warned about further funding cuts in the spending review, as was reported in Monday’s FE Week. Colleges and courses do not exist in silos. If there are funding cuts for 16 to 19-year-olds, it will have a knock-on effect on other age groups. Earlier in the week, the shadow Chancellor and I spoke to hundreds of FE staff in London. There was genuine fury not just because they will be less able to help students, but about the life chances that will go astray.

The National Audit Office rightly reported on the problems in FE earlier in the year. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), in her role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, described it as a “deeply alarming report”.

It is not just in Department for Education policy that the Government are failing to support the skills and growth that we need. There is a failure of joined-up thinking across the Departments and there is no acknowledgement of the impact that the Government ‘s cuts are having on post-school education. The Minister knows that business and the budget for further education are closely linked, but the new higher education Green Paper threatens to stack the deck against FE colleges that derive precious revenue from providing degree-level skills. If he plans to ensure that colleges that do not immediately meet the desired standards are supported to improve and bounce back, rather than starting on a cycle of decline, fair enough, but the Green Paper has no answers to that question.

The analysis by our shadow Education team showed just what the cuts would mean for 16 to 19-year-olds. Assuming the Department met the lower target of 25%, spending on 16-to-19 provision could fall by £1.6 billion a year by 2020. No wonder the alarm bells have been rung all across the sector. No wonder the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, in its spending review submission, said that funding for 16-to-18 education should be maintained. The Government need to realise that people from across the sector, including the Association of Colleges, which has spoken out strongly, and the University and College Union, which has said that colleges

“cater for the learning needs of a wide range of people, including many from vulnerable or disadvantaged groups”,

are saying that colleges should not lose out to schools but that the Government are in danger of allowing that to happen.

We have heard a lot from the sixth-form college sector. Research by the Sixth Form Colleges Association at the beginning of August painted a picture of a beleaguered sector under serious threat from three separate funding cuts since 2011—never mind what might come up next week. Only this week, the principal of my sixth-form college said to me:

“Last year 81.42% of our students progressed to HE, a further 12.21% to employment with training…and only 0.94% remained NEET… Another cut in funding threatens all this. Not only will the college have to seek significant savings in its day to day operation, we will also have to consider…reducing the curriculum offer…to students”

and

“removing key specialist subjects from our portfolio”.

He also said the college risks not meeting its work experience requirements or the local needs of the community. A paper from the Sixth Form Colleges Association has made the same point. The principal of the excellent Blackpool and The Fylde further education college, which teaches 3,000 under-18s, has said to me: “Given the attainment in schools in the locality, post-16 providers have to compensate for poor performance and need to be remunerated accordingly. I hope you will continue your support for the college in the forthcoming year, particularly by offering robust challenges to any further funding cuts in the autumn spending review.”

Even on their most clearly stated aims, the Government cannot help shooting themselves in the foot. Ministers proclaim that they protected schools from cuts by ring-fencing funding, but they do not recognise the effects of cuts on schools with a sixth-form attached, many of which use the secondary education budget to cover the huge cuts. Ministers have encouraged 169 new school sixth forms to open since 2010, but there are now 1,200 with fewer than 100 students. There are already indications that pressures on the sector mean that providers cannot offer the service our young people need, even in core areas such as maths. In answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister told me that 150 graduates would be offered bursaries to train this year, but that figure represents only about 3% of the current maths teaching force. Some 25% of experienced teachers are approaching retirement, and those older teachers are three times more likely to have a maths qualification than younger recruits.

Government Members who think that these FE cuts and area reviews will pass them by should listen to the warning given by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) last week in Question Time, when he asked the Minister to assure him

“that the area reviews are not just a cover for further, unrealistic cuts that will threaten their viability altogether”.—[Official Report, 10 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 213.]

The Government claim that they want to energise technical and professional skills, but then they fail to deliver level 4 work experience in schools. They claim they want to boost productivity, but then, in their area reviews, ignore the vital role that colleges and providers play. They claim they want to give everyone a proper chance, but then produce cuts with unforeseen consequences. They claim that they want to talk about equalities, but as we have heard, colleges and schools are short of funding, which often means that support for disabled young people is not forthcoming or co-ordinated. They do not understand—or they do not care to understand—the cumulative effects of those cuts, just as they did not understand the awful damage that was done by cutting the education maintenance allowance and aid for social mobility.

Further education must no longer be the whipping boy when the spending review is delivered. If the Government will the ends, they must will the means. Otherwise, meanness and lack of focus will leave thousands of young people at risk of having their life chances shredded by the ignorance or incompetence of this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend raises an important point that a number of people have made to me recently. Cash retention is a common practice that can provide insurance for customers against poor workmanship. However, the scope for misuse is clear. That is why the Government have commissioned a review of the practice. We will see what action we can take.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Further education has already been weakened by five years of Government funding cuts, so why are Ministers having hasty, half-cocked area reviews that threaten forced course and college closures? Figures released by the Library today suggest that the Chancellor is demanding at least £1.6 billion in FE cuts, and a new Green Paper proposes free-for-all providers that would threaten colleges’ higher education teaching. Are Ministers doing anything to stop FE being the spending review’s whipping boy?

[Sajid Javid]

We have discussed this issue previously. As I have said, we want an even stronger FE sector that provides even more opportunities across the country, and local area reviews are essential for that. We need to understand local needs much more carefully, and local reviews will achieve that. We will then be able to offer more opportunities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

We are certainly open to a whole range of options. As I say, ultimately, colleges themselves will determine what they think will work best. I do not agree with the hon. Lady that somehow there is anything necessarily to be afraid of from a merger. A merger can mean that people save a whole lot of administrative and management costs, so they can actually pour more money into paying teachers to do the job that we all want them to do.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

In the last Parliament, the Government cut education funding for 16 to 19-year-olds hardest of all. Today, we learn that funding allocations for colleges and schools for the 16-to-19 sector are down over £100 million so far compared with last year. The Government have given them further instability with the flawed series of area FE reviews, jeopardising colleges and their students. With this record, does the Minister have any guarantees for the spending review to secure viability for the 16-to-19 sector?

[Nick Boles]

We might want to look over the channel to see what happens to an education sector when the Government are not getting a grip on spending and on ensuring a strong economy. In Portugal, schools have been closed and teachers laid off. In Greece, teachers have faced a 30% cut in their salaries. We are ensuring a strong sector that is able to educate young people for a life of work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I talk to the NDNA all the time. I am very much aware not only of its concerns but of the concerns of other players in the sector. We were the only party to commit to a review of the funding rate in the general election campaign. Today, I have announced that the review is under way. We will consult the sector and get its views not only on the exact rate, but on how to implement the 30 hours policy.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of current arrangements for key stage 4 students to access business and work experience.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

Ensuring that young people leave school or college prepared for life in modern Britain is a vital part of our plan for education. We have put more emphasis on mastering vital skills and on more respected qualifications, and we have given employers greater influence over the content of courses, so that young people have the skills that universities and employers value. One reason I am delighted to continue as Secretary of State is that I can continue to make progress with the new employer-led careers and enterprise company, which will help young people access the best advice and inspiration by encouraging greater collaboration between schools, colleges and employers.

[Mr Marsden]

That sounds all fine and dandy, but the Government’s dropping of mandatory work experience from the school curriculum has not helped the small businesses I speak to in Blackpool, which want to take young people on. Nationally, the British Chambers of Commerce found that three quarters of employers were worried about a lack of work readiness. Will the Secretary of State make a fresh start and bring forward substantial initiatives to improve work experience, thereby making apprenticeships more accessible to 16 to 19-year-olds?

[Nicky Morgan]

I am afraid I will not be changing course. We are focusing on high quality and meaningful work experience post-16. The blanket requirement to provide work experience at key stage 4 and under had fewer and fewer employers willing to accommodate young people. They were worried about health and safety, red tape introduced under the previous Government and, exactly as the hon. Gentleman says, being without the work readiness skills that this Government are focusing on to ensure our young people are ready for life in the world of work.