Careers Service (Young People)

Debate between Neil Carmichael and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend speaks with customary clarity on these issues, and tells us what life is like for the young people he represents, many of whom might be new arrivals in this country who do not understand how young people can open the doors to education, training and jobs. He has put his finger on the problem. The Government take the view that schools can do everything, and that everything can be pushed down to the schools. Some things need to be organised across the whole local authority, however, if we are to maintain quality and expertise.

I am prepared to believe that schools could provide the necessary advice, but the transition process needs to be managed so that the experts who are currently working for the local authorities can be brought into the schools to provide the advice from those schools. Instead, this lot are allowing those people to be let go and made redundant, even though they have many years experience in the careers service. They are being lost to the profession, and in a few months’ time the schools will be expected to subscribe to a phone or web-based service.

Government Members might think that this is funny, but I do not. We are talking about young people’s life chances, and those young people deserve better than what the Government are giving them. We owe them more, because the world that they are facing is far harsher than the one that we lived in 30 or so years ago. Young people today can expect to have at least 10 different jobs throughout their careers—probably more. Unlike their grandparents, who did specific jobs in large industries, they will be most likely to work in smaller companies. They will need to be all-rounders, able to adapt quickly to new situations. It is also more likely that they will be employers as well as employees.

The harsh truth is that it is getting harder for everyone to get on, but the odds are being stacked much more heavily against those who have the least. If we do not act, this century will see us return to a world in which the postcode of the bed that people are born in will pretty much determine where they end up in life. In today’s world, as traditional structures break down, social networks and connections are becoming the key to jobs and opportunities. In some industries—sadly, we can count Parliament among them—it has become almost expected that a young person will have to work for free before they can get their first foot on the ladder. That is wrong; it is the exploitation of young people’s determination to get on.

If we allow the situation to continue in which there is no careers advice and in which the only way in is through having a connection with a company or organisation and moving to London to work for free, we will limit the job opportunities in the most sought-after careers in the country to less than 1% or 2% of the population. That is not a situation that I am prepared to accept. Parliament needs to step in and level up the playing field, to ensure a fair distribution of life chances around the country. We need to help those young people who have the least.

A statutory careers service is important because not all young people get the same support and advice at home. Dame Ruth Silver, chair of the Careers Profession Task Force, says of the Government’s approach:

“It will further deepen deprivation, because some people come from families who have never worked; the ones who need it most are those who don’t have successful adults in their lives.”

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State rightly talks about levelling up the playing field. Does he acknowledge the concerns expressed by Dr Alison Wolf about courses leading to no employment, or leading to a “road block” because they are not allied to any specific employment prospects?

[Andy Burnham]

I have some sympathy with that argument, but it is an argument for more and better careers advice, not less. We have some sympathy with the view that we need to ensure that all qualifications should be of a decent standard and should lead somewhere. We accept that view and we will support the Government in that regard, but that is not an alternative; we still need good quality careers advice alongside those routes. I feel passionately that, collectively, the whole lot of us here have failed the 50% or more of young people who are not going to go down the university route. We have not done enough to provide them with a proper structure or a proper route through to good qualifications and a good job, and it is about time that we addressed that balance. It is about time that this House, rather than focusing on the top 20% and the English baccalaureate, thought about a pathway for all children, so that they can all fulfil their potential.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady was not here at the start, and I am not sure whether she has heard the whole debate. Her point does not quite fit. We want young people to make the right choices for them. We should strongly encourage the teaching of foreign languages, particularly in primary schools, but they will not be right for all young people. The question I would ask her is this: why are young people who want to do engineering, information and communications technology, business studies, economics, music, art or other creative subjects being told that they are somehow second best because those subjects are not in the English baccalaureate? What is it that justifies the Government ranking some subjects above others—and, by definition, ranking some children above others?

[Neil Carmichael]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I give way one last time to the hon. Gentleman.

[Neil Carmichael]

Following the right hon. Gentleman’s response to my previous intervention, will he shed some light on his view on the need to involve employers in creating the courses and qualifications that lead to outcomes for young people? One thing Professor Alison Wolf made very clear is that employers should be much more involved in the FE sector and in the formation of courses and qualifications.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes another good point. I agree with him, but urge him, perhaps when the Minister is speaking, to stand up and ask his Front-Bench team what discussions they had with the CBI before they introduced the English baccalaureate. What is the CBI’s view of it? Does it respond sufficiently to the needs of employers. I see the hon. Gentleman nodding and I hope he will direct those questions to his Front-Bench team. Quite frankly, we risk preparing young people for a world that no longer exists and we need to ensure that young people have the crucial skills—good communication skills, critical thinking and good presentational skills—that they will need if they are to survive in a workplace where much more is demanded of them.

The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning is not in his place this evening, but when we last debated these issues he said:

“Let us once and for all kill off the bourgeois, left assumption that working-class people do not aspire to the same things as their middle-class contemporaries. Their ambitions are the same; what they lack is the wherewithal.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 1257.]

I agree with that statement. Let me share a shocking statistic with the House; I genuinely find it appalling. It is that 39% of 16 to 19-year-olds who went to a state school say that they do not know anyone in a career in which they would like to work. This rises to 45% among the poorest young people who receive free school meals. What Ministers fail to recognise is that if someone does not know a single person in a career in which they would like to work, they might not be able to fulfil their aspirations in the same way as others.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Neil Carmichael and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way in a moment.

The Government’s answer is, “We are raising the school leaving age to 18.” What kind of answer is that? Do they really think they can simply mandate that young people will have to stay on and then provide no practical support to make it work? Perhaps that is why the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education said yesterday that he thought the removal of EMA would be damaging. The Government have a lot of convincing to do as regards senior voices on their own side of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

All I can say is that I do not think the hon. Gentleman was listening. I said that EMA makes life possible, and makes the calculations that young people have to do to stay in education that bit more doable. Is he seriously arguing that taking it from those young people will help them to make a success of their lives and circumstances? I find that hard to believe.

The vast majority of EMA is spent on travel, as a survey for the Association of Colleges confirmed this week. It states that

“94% of Colleges believe that the abolition of the EMA will affect students’ ability to travel to and from College.”

The survey also suggests that some students may be at risk of not being able to follow the college course of their choice due to the cost or availability of transport. That goes to the heart of student choice in education. If students do not have the ability to travel, they cannot get on to the courses that they want to study. The Secretary of State needs to come up with a convincing answer to that.

I want the Secretary of State also to think about the effect of the change on the aspirations of young people who are still in secondary school. I want him to reflect on what a young woman from my constituency told me this week—that her 15-year-old brother had already given up at school because, without EMA, he could not see any way that he would be able to go to Wigan and Leigh college to study the motor engineering course that he had planned to do. Is there not a real risk that taking the lifeline of EMA away from young people will lower the aspirations of children in secondary school? Better participation, attendance, retention and results, supporting choice and keeping hope alive for all kids—surely it all adds up to a compelling educational case for keeping EMA.

[Neil Carmichael]

rose—

Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Neil Carmichael and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

As the hon. Gentleman sees more of his Government, he will perhaps come to understand the difference between real reform and reckless reform. Indeed, the House has just been hearing about the achievements of a reformed national health service under my watch and I can tell him that I am very proud of them.

Let me start with Building Schools for the Future and the charge that I lay at the Secretary of State’s door. He has got into a mess and the allocation of capital is no longer driven by educational need but by ideology. Building Schools for the Future was a needs-led approach to the allocation of capital. Instead, he wanted to use capital as bait to lure schools into his new structural models, but then came the spending review.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Why were fewer than 100 schools rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future under the last Labour Government?

[Andy Burnham]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever been to any of those schools, but if he has seen the transformation in those communities and the messages that the schools send to children in areas that have, frankly, been let down for decades, I am surprised that he rises to his feet to say that that investment is not worth making. Let us talk about his Government and the spending review arrangements that his Secretary of State has recently secured: minus 60%. Let us just think about that figure for a moment.

Just after the spending review, the Financial Times reported senior Whitehall figures chiding the Secretary of State for

“folding too early in negotiations over capital”

spending. The only shock for me on reading that was to learn that he had been negotiating at all. We know that he is courteous, and we like that about him, but minus 60%? I can almost hear him now, politely inviting George and Danny to fill their boots. Is 60% enough? Do they want more? I doubt that the Secretary of State has played much poker in his life—although he has his poker face on now—but, as with sport in schools, it gives a person certain life skills and I recommend it to him.

The average capital reduction across Whitehall was 30%. I would think that everyone in education could live with that. But double the punishment? How exactly does that minus 60% reduction meet the Secretary of State’s “schools protected” claim?