House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Nov 1993

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Mr. Don Foster : I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He is right to inform the House that if there are concerns about the accuracy of league tables--and if, sadly, we are to go ahead with them--it is vital that those issues are resolved. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is even more important, if that procedure is to be adopted, that he ensures that there is full support for the recommendations of Sir Ron Dearing, and many other people, that we urgently continue with research to find ways of indicating added value? That is one of the most crucial issues on which we should be reporting about the work of schools.

Mr. Patten : The hon. Gentleman has raised two points. One is partisan, to which I shall respond in a partisan vein, and the other non- partisan, to which I shall respond in kind.

It is outrageous--the House can tell by the tone of my voice that this is my partisan response--that the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Liberal party, which is devoted to freedom of information, should seek to suppress information and to lock the door to the hitherto secret garden of education. The Conservative party is devoted to freedom of information, but we all know that the hon. Gentleman does not share that devotion.

On the hon. Gentleman's second point, it is absolutely right that we should do all that we possibly can to improve the contents of the further education and school performance tables. As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), I shall take into account what she said about adults and their performance at further education colleges.

I am equally happy to respond to the second request of the hon. Member for Bath. Sir Ron Dearing, the chairman of the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, is my main curriculum adviser along with the authority, and I have specifically asked him to address exactly this issue. I do not believe that any of us should delude ourselves. We would all like to see more value-added measures in the performance tables, but it will not be an easy task to get agreement on what those measures should be. A lot of work must be done.

Mr. Pawsey : It is very complicated.

Mr. Patten : My hon. Friend is correct. It is extremely important that the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, under the chairmanship of Sir Ron Dearing, should continue to address this important issue. I have specifically asked him to advise me further about what we can do in future years. I know that, whatever he recommends, however, the hon. Member for Bath will not like it, because he does not want any information about schools to be published.

Mr. Pawsey : It is a great shame : "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

Mr. Patten : I note that you are about to intervene, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for saving me. [Laughter.] The House is becoming extremely rowdy, and I can hardly hear myself think with such constant barracking.

Mr. Don Foster : It is important to put on record that I disagree with what the Secretary of State has said. I am in favour of information being made available, but it must be accurate, comprehensive and informative. On all three

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counts, the current league tables fail miserably. The Secretary of State is a well-read man, and I am sure he is aware of the quotation from Alexander Pope :

"A little learning is a dang'rous thing".

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that, unfortunately, is what is offered by the current league tables.

Mr. Patten : In sight of my little house in Oxfordshire is Pope's tower. Many locals think that in some previous century a pope sat there. It is found in the grounds of the manor house at Stanton Harcourt. Unfortunately, part of the great manor house has gone, and some of the grounds are derelict, but the rest are in splendid condition. Pope's tower is next to the church.

In the middle of that splendid scene Alexander Pope recorded how he saw two young lovers sitting, in a perfectly modest way, under a hayrick who were struck by lightning at the same time. What a way to go. The hon. Member for Bath is a well-read man, and I am sure that he is aware of the poem that Pope wrote about that. It is recorded on a gravestone in Stanton Harcourt church. Should the hon. Gentleman ever wish to visit the area, I will show him the tower and the gravestone.

Lady Olga Maitland : Does my right hon. Friend agree that, contrary to the assertion of the hon. Member for Bath that the league tables have failed miserably, they are warmly welcomed by parents, who scour the lists?

Mr. Patten : In future years, I shall campaign vigorously in my constituency to point out that the Liberal party wishes to suppress that information and to take away from parents the right to know about school performance. The campaigning techniques of the Liberals in my constituency are quite disgusting, but I know that you would not wish me to go down that track, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Foundation target 1 will be largely achieved in schools, and that will be done pre-eminently through the national curriculum, associated testing and the GCSE examinations. There will be an inevitable time lag before the full benefits of it come on stream. Try as we may, children still take 11 highly important years to get from the age of five to 16 in educational terms. We must not rest on our laurels. We are also aiming to develop vocational education, pre-16, and we will encourage breadth through progressive implementation of the national records of achievement.

More generally, we are pursuing measures to encourage choice and diversity still further. The targets, for example, are integral to my recent technology colleges initiative, which has been widely welcomed by many, including the Confederation of British Industry. The new Further Education Funding Council arrangements mean that, for the first time, we can adopt a coherent approach to what was once thought to be a Cinderella sector. I gave the targets a central place in my letter of guidance to the new funding council on its launch last year.

Moves towards achieving the targets are also appropriately reflected in the funding council's powerful funding method, which is now being put in place. We put money where our mouths are. Expenditure plans for this year and the next two years provide for a 25 per cent. expansion of further education numbers. That represents an extraordinary revolution, and it will be a substantial step towards achieving the targets.

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It should be the lasting credit of the Government that, at a time of considerable economic difficulty, we have found the priority to expand the further education sector by a quarter. To make the most of the structural changes, we have developed new comprehensive post-16 curriculum and examination policies. In place of what was often described as an alphabet soup there is now a coherent framework of qualifications.

The best-known qualifications are probably the GCSE and the tried and tested GCE A-level and AS-level examinations. They make up the so-called academic route. I have asked the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority to ensure that standards are maintained through strengthened quality assurance arrangements.

The previous jungle of essentially work-based and job-specific vocational qualifications is being simplified by the now widely available NVQs. The close involvement of employers in the specification of those qualifications --I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment is keen to promote that involvement--is a guarantee of their quality and their fitness for purpose.

Bridging the gap between the two types of qualification to which I have referred is the new family of general national vocational qualifications, including the new vocational A-level. They are designed to enable people to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding in a broadly occupational context.

When I visited the annual conference of the Girls Schools Association yesterday, I was pleased to note that Miss Joan Jefferson, the head of St. Swithin's school in Winchester, issued a press notice specifically to welcome the Government's action on vocational A-level qualifications.

The GNVQs prepare for a progression to both further study and worthwhile jobs. The first GNVQs started in September 1992, but the response is already very encouraging. In the light of experience in the pilot phase, I have asked the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, under its new chairman, Mr. Michael Heron, to strengthen the quality mechanisms.

More centres and courses are coming on stream. By 1996, I want one in four of 16-year-olds to be following GNVQs. That is the target that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment have set ourselves.

Lady Olga Maitland : May I give a warm welcome to the progress of the GNVQs? Although it is important to develop vocational studies, will my right hon. Friend confirm that considerable emphasis is placed on numeracy and literacy within that qualification?

Mr. Patten : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether one is studying NVQs, GNVQs or A-levels, that study is conducted in the medium of English. English is the most important cross-curricular theme that anyone can study. It is important that throughout the study of those different qualifications, they are imbued with strong attention to the correct use of English, both written and spoken, and that matters relating to numeracy are equally attended to.

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That I have to say that, sometimes to hoots of derision in this House and elsewhere--although, happily, not today-- would amaze people in Korea, shock people in Taiwan, and reduce people to helpless laughter in Singapore or Hong Kong, and would cause Education Ministers, Industry Ministers and Employment Ministers to dance in the streets of our competitor countries in western Europe. In western Europe, it is an extraordinary reflection that the teaching of the basics should still be attacked by some--although, happily, by a declining number of people in this country.

Mrs. Ann Taylor : I notice the emphasis that the Secretary of State placed on the need for good English. Can he explain why the Government are severely cutting section 11 grants, which would help those people for whom English is a second language and whose access to the curriculum will be harmed because they lack basic language skills?

Mr. Patten : I spent some happy years at the Home Office as a junior Minister, when one of my responsibilities was section 11 grants. One of the first things that I did was to ask how those grants were spent. I found that, disgracefully, in a number of education authorities throughout the country--such as

Labour-controlled Avon--many hundreds of teaching posts that were meant to be funded for the teaching of English to ethnic minority groups had been kidnapped and that the money was spent instead on general education. A substantial amount of section 11 money was wasted.

It is critical now that that money, which is already running at about £100 million a year, is targeted at the teaching of English. I stress the teaching of English although I respect minority cultures and fully understand that some people may need help in the language of their mother tongue if they come from households in which only the mother tongue is spoken or is largely spoken. I think, for example, of Somali communities in Tower Hamlets in east London.

None the less, English is the national language and unless a member of a minority community is able clearly and effectively to speak and write that majority language, which has a world currency, he or she will remain socially disadvantaged in this country. I do not want to see any social disadavantage among members of our minority groups.

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : Possibly the most pernicious effect of section 11 funding that is incorrectly targeted is that it does not go into mainstream education--where, one hopes, it would improve standards--but often into nonsensical multiculturism that divides communities and reminds them of their differences rather than of what they have in common.

A recent classic example was the advice given by the Pre-School Playgroups Association to a Lambeth playgroup, which decided as a result to forgo all Christmas festivities and any mention of the nativity. Fortunately, that playgroup saw sense and changed its mind. That was done in the guise of the kind of multiculturalism that has too often been the result of section 11 funding.

Mr. Patten : I greatly value the PPA's work nationally, and was glad that Margaret Lochrie, who runs the PPA nationally and whom I have known for years, quickly came forward to make it clear that there was some confusion

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between the association's central office and that Lewisham playgroup. All is now well, and I pay considerable tribute to the PPA.

As to my hon. Friend's first point on the question of where multiculturalism becomes political correctness and begins to harm people, I will give a specific example to show where the line should be drawn. Again, I call on my experience as a junior Minister at the Home Office.

I continued to approve section 11 funding in the form of grants to clubs for Asians and Afro-Caribbeans over retirement age. Many Asian women in particular speak no English and it struck me as absolutely right that, as they would never change, special accommodation should be made for their culture. Equally, many people having an Afro-Caribbean background had been left to live alone without their families. It was entirely right to make special provision for them also.

However, I immediately stopped the provision of money for Afro-Caribbean- only day nurseries. Such funding struck me as totally wrong. How could anyone think it right? Pensioners' clubs for Bangladeshis and others who cannot speak English are right, but nothing could help to split this nation more than nursery or other accommodation for people from different ethnic groups. We must be absolutely straightforward about that. What is politically correct is nonsense. What is effective is good. I give way to the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd), who is always politically correct and always good.

Mr. Tony Lloyd (Stretford) : I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I had intended to pay him a compliment anyway, because my own constituency--under a Conservative-controlled authority--benefited from his actions when he was at the Home Office, in preventing Conservative authorities such as Trafford from using section 11 money to support general educational spending. His action at that time was most important.

The Secretary of State made a strong and profound case for section 11 funding, emphasising the need to acknowledge the language problems among different minority groups. I do not know whether that was a coded attack on his colleagues in the Home Office and an appeal to them to rethink section 11 grants.

The right hon. Gentleman answered the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) when he said that as a Home Office Minister, he was able to be selective in the use of section 11 funding. Would not that have been the right way forward--recognising the usefulness of and need for section 11 funding and maintaining it at present levels, but being selective and ensuring that it was targeted where it would do most good?

Mr. Patten : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks about Trafford council--which, under Conservative control, is an excellent metropolitan authority which has done exceptionally well educationally in recent years. The hon. Gentleman suggested that I, of all people, might make a coded attack. I have never been accused of doing that--writs fly around my head every time I open my mouth. It was not a coded attack, because I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary on the section 11 policy that he is promoting. We are spending more than £100 million a year, which is a huge amount of taxpayer's money. I want

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to see it targeted at people who really need help, in Tower Hamlets and elsewhere, and not spread too thinly throughout the country. People in Tower Hamlets suffer terribly from being

disadvantaged--most notably, from the disadvantage of having a Liberal-run council. We need to help them all that we possibly can. And, for the avoidance of doubt, it is a racist Liberal council as well.

Mr. Don Foster : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would the Secretary of State care to withdraw that statement?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : That is not a point of order or a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Patten : Surely the hon. Gentleman has seen the leaflets published by the Liberal party in Tower Hamlets--but, judging by your stern look, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps I should return to GNVQs, which prepare for progression to both further study and worthwhile jobs.

The first GNVQs started in September 1992. The response is already most encouraging. In the light of experience gained in the pilot phase, I asked the National Council for Vocational Qualifications to strengthen quality mechanisms. More centres and courses are coming on stream. By 1996, I want one in four 16-year-olds to be following GNVQs. That is another target--and if I do not meet it, I shall be in trouble with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, because we will not have delivered the goods. The signs are not bad. By September, 1,000 institutions in England alone--about 500 schools and about 500 further education and sixth form colleges--had begun to teach GNVQs. The signs are pretty good, and I wish that GNVQs were spread more throughout our schools and colleges.

Mr. Anthony Coombs : My right hon. Friend is right to say that there are grounds for optimism about the spread of GNVQs. Of the full-time students of Kidderminster college in my constituency, no fewer than half are following GNVQ courses.

Mr. Patten : That is excellent news, and I congratulate the principal and staff of Kidderminster college. My hon. Friend the Under- Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education has just reminded me that, in addition to mentioning the statistic of 1,000 schools, sixth form colleges and further education colleges, it might be more telling to state that 80,000 young people are undertaking GNVQs this autumn. That is from nothing--from a standing start--and we shall see it taking off.

The framework provides options to suit the wide range of talents found among young people. I very much want to see parity of esteem between different outcomes at the same general level. The skill levels represented by those outcomes are far more significant than the specific means by which they have been achieved.

The fact that there are various ways through the qualifications framework underlines the importance of early, informed and impartial careers education and guidance. That is an important function of schools and colleges, and sits squarely with other steps to increase their responsiveness to those they seek to serve. In turn, that is part and parcel of the citizens charter philosophy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. With the parents

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charter and the recently published charters for further and higher education, that policy is now applied throughout education. The focus of the targets on the vital craft and technician levels means that higher education is mainly outside the targets. Higher education institutions run an increasing number of two-year diploma courses and similar courses suitable for the high-powered and high-level technical skills that we increasingly need in this country. I should like to see more such courses in universities. Higher education certainly has a role in some of the lifetime targets. More generally, it has an important effect on school and further education. The Government have a clear target for young people in higher education, and we have made record progress towards achieving those ends.

The progress that we have made so far has been unparalleled. In the May 1991 higher education White Paper, the Government said that they expected that approaching one in three of all 18 to 19-year-olds would enter higher education by the year 2000--that was our spring 1991 target. We confirmed that as our target for the year 2000 in our manifesto for the general election last year--just 18 or 20 months ago. I am glad to be able to tell the House today, for the first time, that this autumn, in only two years rather than eight, we have achieved that target.

Early information about enrolments shows that, for the first time, about 31 per cent. of all young people have entered higher education this October. That is a staggering success story for the universities and colleges involved. It is also a staggering success story on the part of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the leadershis has such a target been met so far--six clear years--in advance of the target laid down.

We have witnessed an expansion of participation rates on a scale much greater than anything ever seen in the post-Robbins era of the 1960s. Let us consider the figures. In the 25 years--the quarter of a century--from 1963 to 1988, the participation doubled to about 15 per cent.

Now, for the first time, I can report that, during the past five years, the participation rate has more than doubled again, to approximately 31 per cent. I am pleased to say that the number of mature entrants--those over the age of 24--has doubled. Therefore, the absolute numbers of students in higher education today is very much greater than at any time before.

On the evidence of the figures that I have been collecting this week--they are up-to-date figures--for the first time in the history of this country there are now 1 million students on full-time courses in higher education in England. In the past year alone, the number of students on full-time courses has increased by 100,000.

I shall set those figures in context, and also repeat them for emphasis. In the last year alone, the number of students on full-time courses has increased by 100,000--that represents about half the number of students in all our universities in 1963 at the time of the Robbins report, which is an outstanding achievement.

That increase of 100,000 students over the last year is the equivalent of creating a dozen new universities in England--an extraordinary achievement. In just one

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university term, this October 1993, there has been a much greater expansion in the equivalent number of universities represented by the 100,000 students than we ever saw in the immediate post- Robbins era, with the setting up of new universities in places such as Sussex and Essex.

Mr. Pawsey : My right hon. Friend rightly places emphasis on the expansion. I was delighted to hear him apportioning credit to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. However, he is being unduly modest, as I believe that a considerable amount of credit should also go to him for what he has done in the way in which he has promoted advanced education.

As to the main thrust of my question, although my right hon. Friend properly draws attention to what has taken place in advanced education, does he not agree that some remarkable conclusions must be drawn about the quality of education in our schools? The substantial expansion could have taken place only if large numbers of young people were properly qualified and able to take advantage of advanced education.

Mr. Patten : My hon. Friend is right, and I take the opportunity of answering his question to pay tribute to all the hard-working teachers in our schools in England who have made the rapid expansion possible. That work has been mirrored by the hard work of vice-chancellors and university lecturers in all our universities. Their efforts have made possible the extraordinary advance.

Lady Olga Maitland : I join my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) in warmly welcoming the excellent news that there are 100,000 extra students in our universities. That is an enormous tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but does it not tell us something else? The great debate about student grants and student loans has clearly had no effect on students, who wish to go to university because they value the importance of university and realise that they should make a contribution.

Mr. Patten : My hon. Friend is right, and I thank her for her kind words on the rate of expansion promoted by the Government. I agree with her entirely. I am proud to represent the university constituency of Oxford, West and Abingdon, which contains one of Oxford's two universities. My constituency houses several thousand students and several thousand dons.

A few years ago, when my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State introduced student loans, my advice centres were full of students and dons in Oxford saying that the loan scheme would be an unmitigated disaster and would choke off participation. There has been no evidence of that--I have given evidence to the contrary this morning to show that, far from choking off participation, a regime under which students have to contribute to their living costs through loans has produced a record participation rate. Far from choking off participation, the equivalent of a dozen universities have been created this autumn.

I was also told that the loan scheme would have an adverse effect on minority groups and those coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds, but that has not happened either. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam is right. A bit of motivation among the student population is a good thing. They must be motivated to develop themselves and stretch themselves intellectually ; a bit of financial motivation is good.

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It is perhaps because of that motivation that we have the most efficient and effective university system in Europe. Most of our university degrees are studied over just three years and, in international terms, our universities enjoy the lowest drop-out rates, which has much to do with the motivation of our splendid university students. In other parts of Europe--I had better tread carefully for fear of causing an international incident--it can take students seven or eight years to get through university, so it is a form of outdoor relief for those in their early 30s.

Mr. Pawsey : Indoor relief.

Mr. Patten : Indeed. But our young people get outdoors after university aged 21 or 22.

I should not concentrate purely on young people, however, because a bare majority of those entering our universities this autumn were in fact mature students aged more than 24, and that is excellent. I also welcome the fact that so many of them are women : 48 per cent. of all undergraduates this autumn were women, which is exceptionally good, and the Government should be proud of it.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : The Secretary of State is dishing out accolades to the Conservative party for having expanded higher education. Will he take this opportunity generously to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of the Labour Government to creating the Open university, from which millions of people have benefited and which is a milestone in educational achievement? Gratitude should be expressed by those millions of people to the Labour Government for setting up the university some years ago.

Mr. Patten : Of course I recognise that it was a great idea of Lord Wilson's--assisted also, during her four-year reign as Education Secretary, by my noble Friend Lady Thatcher, who presided over the expansion of the Open university and who got from a succession of bemused Tory Chancellors the additional sums of money that made that possible. The House is delighted to know that, from next year, Madam Speaker will be chancellor of the Open university.

Mr. Harry Greenway : I am in my 14th year on the council of the Open university, and proud to serve there. May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the wonderful and imaginative changes that there have been in the Open university, which, as he rightly said, was saved by Baroness Thatcher? There are courses for the unemployed, all sorts of vocational courses and exported courses. The institution is given to all sorts of innovation, and it has all been inspired by the lead of Conservative Governments. That, too, must be acknowledged.

Mr. Patten : I am delighted to pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work over the past 14 years on the Open university's council. I visited the university in September and was much impressed by the work that Vice- Chancellor Dr. John Daniel and others do there.

I was also impressed earlier this month when I went to Bratislava--for the benefit of the geographically challenged, it is the capital of Slovakia-- and saw at the city university the excellent work that the Open university is doing to promote the learning of English and other subjects. There is an excellent and close working link between the Open university and the city university of

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Bratislava, and the rector is very proud of it. It is doing an enormous amount of good to shore up democracy in the emerging countries of central Europe. It is also excellent that the Open university sells and exports the English language.

Incidentally, I am somewhat shocked to learn that about half the £6 billion worldwide market for the teaching of English is taken up by colleges teaching English in Australia and Ireland. I intend to put that right as far as possible.

I was also struck by the excellent work done by the British Council in Bratislava. Under its director, and with the use of know-how fund money, it does an enormous amount to export British education services to central Europe. That was stressed to me by the rectors of a number of universities during my enjoyable stay in Bratislava. I found out, too, that rectors in central European universities are called to their face, "Your Magnificence". That is rather interesting ; those who wish to gain preferment in the Department for Education now have a clear route to it when addressing their Secretary of State.

When talking of education and training, there is a temptation to focus on the needs of young people, but, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury and I have agreed, adults are just as important. The lifetime targets rightly direct attention to the need also to maintain and develop provision for adults. The base here is higher than generally appreciated. I did not realise how high it was until I first entered the Department for Education. Mature students already make up the significant majority of enrolments.

We also need to guard against letting all the focus fall on the particular levels highlighted in the targets. Improved performance in that area needs to be underpinned by better performance in basic skills by both young people and adults.

The last of the four limbs of my Department's action plan relates to the development of human resources. A much greater recognition of the need to devlop the potential of the work force--the very principle at the heart of "investors in people"--is needed to stimulate the right kind of demand from the supply coming on stream.

I cannot emphasise too much the key importance of the point at which employers meet education, and vice versa. The targets are therefore about higher overall levels of attainment. That will be wasted unless the attainment is in useful areas. If education and training are to supply what employers need, it is crucial that employers make their needs known to students, parents, providers and examining bodies.

Those signals need to be both clear and sent in good time. That is why I welcome all attempts to foster better links between schools and industry. The CBI is doing this with the close co-operation of the TUC. The Institute of Directors has a vital role too, and other important bodies such as Business in the Community and Industry in Education are making an impact in this area as well.

As I told the CBI at its recent conference, the opportunities for links between business--at all levels--and our increasingly responsive schools, colleges and universities have never been better. As illustrated by the case studies in my Department's recent business fact pack about further education, the best thing about these links is that they are mutually beneficial : they are not a one-way street ; no one is a client here. The benefits flow almost directly to the immediate participants. More generally, this

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will help to secure the necessary and irreversible shift of culture, so that higher skill levels are both the normal expectation and highly valued.

Inevitably, I have concentrated on the national position, but achieving the targets will be the result of improvements institution by institution, especially in institutions where achievement is already near or above the targets. It is in local institutions such as the Kidderminster college, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest referred, that the real effort is being made. The answer is provided by the local yardsticks being developed through the TECs, and I am grateful for their invaluable work in establishing local baselines and the progress needed to contribute to the targets at national level. The Department of Employment has done excellent work here, and the TECs are to be commended. That work has always been accompanied by important promotional activities which, through the TECs' local education and training networks, are also helping to change the culture to one of expecting success. There are many more things that I want to say today. I came here this morning with a great deal to lay before the House, but, in the interests of fairness, I want to give everyone in the Chamber a chance to speak. We all look forward to the remainder of the debate. The Government have radically improved the structure and content of education and training, and there is now a unique opportunity to secure a step change in the attainments of young people and adults. The national targets provide a clear context for the widespread effort that is now required. Those targets are demanding, but achievable, and we cannot afford to fail in this vital national endeavour.

The hon. Member for Bath was kind enough to say that I occasionally read books, a daring fact for Ministers to reveal. Flicking through Shakespeare, I found that, as always, he has a phrase for us. In the prologue to "Henry VIII", Shakespeare refers to "a noise of targets". May the modern-day noise of targets represented by the national education and training targets be loud, cheerful and successful. 11 am

Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury) : We must thank the Secretary of State for Education for his contribution. I do not know whether his target for finishing was 11 o'clock precisely, but if it was, it is one target which the Government can claim to have reached. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the CBI conference and warm-up speeches. He read his warm-up speech well, and it was only when he started to improvise that he got into difficulties. A significant number of issues need to be addressed and the Secretary of State has set the scene for some of them.

If everything is so good, why is there so much that is so bad? I share the Secretary of State's welcome for the fact that more young people and adults are spending time in higher education. Therefore, it is all the more of a pity that many graduates cannot get employment of the kind for which they are qualified. I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware that graduate unemployment stands at 14 per

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cent. and that many of those who graduated recently are in jobs requiring qualifications well below the level of the degrees for which they have worked.

We welcome the expansion of higher education, but the Secretary of State must recognise that that is leading to a great deal of overcrowding in our universities and that much of the expansion has been underfunded. Such significant problems will have to be addressed on another occasion.

The CBI initiative which led to the national education and training targets and to the debate was a positive move. Some will argue that such a move should have come from Government rather than from the CBI. However, we welcome the fact that the Government support the targets and that there is some co-operation between the CBI and the TUC and other bodies. I am pleased that we are debating these issues, but we should not stake too much on the initiative alone. The Minister's rosy picture and his talk of action plans and targets are not as genuine as he would have us believe.

I should like to deal with some of the specific targets. The Minister spoke about some of the difficulties with target 1. The information that all hon. Members received this week while preparing for the debate shows that between 1991 and 1992 there was a 3.7 per cent. increase in the number of people reaching that target. However, the same briefing said that to be on target overall the increase should have been 5 per cent. and will need to be 5 per cent. in future. There is plainly no room for complacency, because much more needs to be done.

I share the concern of those who think that the picture that has been presented and some of the targets and their attainment are not necessarily an indication of progress but more a profile of where we are at the moment. There is still a long way to go. The Secretary of State did not address any of the difficulties with NVQs and GNVQs, which were raised in the recent Ofsted report. Does the Secretary of State share the concern expressed in that report that those new qualifications may do rather little to increase skills and could give students false hopes? The Secretary of State often quotes Ofsted reports and tells us about their importance and I was disapointed that he did not deal with criticisms in that report.

The Secretary of State did not mention the research conducted by Alan Smithers of Manchester university which was recently reported in the press. That research analysed the impact of NVQs and GNVQs and showed that they are moving people forward but measuring what they can currently do. The Minister should deal with those criticisms rather than brushing them to one side. If we are to make progress, we must take problems on board rather than just hearing the Minister boast about progress.

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