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10.4 am

Mr. Bryan Davies (Oldham, Central and Royton): The Labour party very much welcomes today's debate. There is no doubt that the education and training of 16 to 19-year-olds must be an important priority, as it is one of the most critical issues for our nation today and into the 21st century. Our success or failure in future decades depends on the opportunities that we give our young people today.

The education and training opportunities afforded to young people should provide a platform of learning throughout their lives. They need a secure foundation of educational attainment so that they are equipped to thrive and prosper throughout their careers.

We all recognise that the career patterns that will develop in the modern economy will be different from those of the past. Education is no longer for life for some at 16, for others at 18, for a diminishing number at 21 and for a very small number beyond. Education for life will mean providing opportunities for people throughout their lives. A commitment to education and retraining must be part of the perspective in developing opportunities in the new economy. Therefore, it is essential that we establish opportunities for people that will enable them to acquire basic educational skills and qualifications and will provide them with a framework within which they can maximise their employability and increase their opportunities for developing their education and skills after they have left full-time education.

Mr. Fabricant: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? He referred to a diminishing number of people attending university or higher education at the age of 21. Is it not the case that when Labour last left office, only one in eight were in full-time education at the age of 21 and now the figure is one in three? What point was the hon. Gentleman trying to make?

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting me. I was referring not to participation rates in higher education, but to the qualifications structure in educational opportunities and the fact that fewer people participate in higher levels of education than in lower levels. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for helping me to clarify that.

Despite what the Minister said this morning, the Government's performance in the education of our 16 to 19-year-olds has been lamentable. Britain has fewer people aged 16 to 17 in full-time education than any other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country, with the sole exception of Turkey. So the numbers of which the Minister was boasting in terms of participation beyond 16 in full-time education are extremely poor in comparison with those of other counties.

Mr. Forth: I suspected that the hon. Gentleman might parade that figure. Like most of the figures that the Opposition produce these days, it is highly selective and somewhat convoluted. Does he agree that simply to quote the number of those in education beyond 16 does not necessarily bear any relationship to the needs of individuals, as many young people benefit more from leaving full-time education at 16 and getting jobs or

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entering training? Therefore, the fact that a certain number are not in full-time education after 16 does not necessarily tell us much at all.

Mr. Davies: It tells us a great deal. It tells us that the evaluation made by other countries of the time that their young people need to be in full-time education is quite different. If the Minister is suggesting that people go into worthwhile jobs with developmental prospects at the age of 16, he is not looking at the statistics closely. It is clear that a large number of people employed at 16 are in dead-end jobs that offer no training. It is clear also that a large proportion of that age group remain unemployed significantly longer. Those substantial issues must be addressed, and I shall dwell on them later.

Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) was wrong when he suggested recently that 80 per cent. of the children of unskilled parents leave school at 16? That was the figure under the last Labour Government, but today more than half such children stay in full-time education.

Mr. Davies: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself and give me time to develop my argument, I shall refer to that specific point later. I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman attaches such importance to it. Conservative Members are at last waking up to the scandal of the number of young people who have left full-time education and of how many of them come from less advantaged homes. Those young people deserve our attention, concern and resources, but the Government have scandalously neglected them over a long period.

By age 17, only 50.9 per cent. of young people in England and Wales remain in full-time education, so we need to address that high drop-out rate. By age 18, the figure falls to just 38 per cent. When we emphasise the need for young people to achieve higher standards than in the past, and when we take delight in marginal improvements in recent years for which the Government would ordinarily take credit, the Secretary of State is quite unable to praise the education system, commend parents and congratulate young people on their achievements each summer. Conservative Back Benchers are more concerned to claim that education standards are dropping and that young people only appear to be achieving more because standards have slipped. That extremely unfortunate development in Conservative party thinking is part and parcel of the reason for the Government's education and training strategy being hopelessly flawed, having a performance well below the required level.

Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that basic education standards have slipped because, although central Government must provide the money and carry responsibility, the actual education is delivered for the most part by left-wing local authorities, which are still employing the half-baked education theories of the 1960s?

Mr. Fabricant: Answer that.

Mr. Davies: It is interesting that the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) is not alone in his outrageous

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remarks and receives commendation for such statements from other Conservative Members. Does the Minister claim that A-level performance levels in recent years reflect the failure of the education system? After all, the Conservatives have been in power and controlling the education system for 17 years, so they are certainly responsible. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to make an obscure point about the quality of teaching, I may point out that his Government were in power during the period when the vast majority of practising teachers were trained. If that issue is so significant, why did not the hon. Gentleman challenge the Minister to account for the situation?

Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman asked whether I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham(Mr. Stephen), so I shall set the record straight. Yes, I do agree. I shall pick two local education authorities at random--Islington and Southwark. Those LEAs, which are under Labour control, have received some of the highest funding per pupil of any authority in the country, yet they have let down generations of pupils to such an extent that caring parents, exercising parental choice, have removed their children from Islington and Southwark to send them to other London boroughs. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is the case because he has daily contact with those caring parents. That is a measure of education under Labour, which my hon. Friend had in mind.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Member for Shoreham may have done, but the Minister is in contact with a large number of other caring parents--and I assume that his colleagues on the Conservative Benches are also caring parents. They have such confidence in the Minister that they make sure that their children contract out from anything to do with the education system for which the Minister is responsible.

Mr. Forth indicated dissent.

Mr. Davies: The Minister is indicating that he did not contract out. What a gesture of faith that represents. Why is the Minister so unsuccessful in convincing the vast majority of his colleagues of his achievements? The Minister made no reference to the most worrying statistic of recent years, and I did not notice Conservative Members eager to interject on that point.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewkesbury) rose--

Mr. Davies: I want to get this statistic out first, then the hon. Gentleman--having internalised my point--may intervene.

Last year, for the first time in living memory, the percentage of 16-year-olds staying on in full-time education fell. We saw not just a slowing in the growth of participation rates but a reversal, which will have knock-on effects for achievement at 17 and 18.

Mr. Fabricant: Is it possible that those young people were anticipating, God forbid, a Labour Government together--[Laughter.]--with the shadow Chancellor's tax on sixth formers?

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman got the answer that he deserved, in the mirth that his question evoked.

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Nearly 8 per cent. of pupils failed to gain any GCSE passes in 1993-94. Those youngsters are among the12 per cent. of school leavers who fall into economic inactivity or enter jobs without training. Nearly one in eight school leavers is lost to the education and training system, and the future is bleak for such young people. They are most at risk of long-term unemployment or dead-end, low-skill, low-wage jobs. Those youngsters are most likely to fall into criminal activity. Society seems to offer them so little that their commitment to society and its values tends to be low. They are a lost generation, which is why our policies are addressed significantly to that group. The facts tell it all. There are 600,000 unemployed people between the ages of 18 and 25--one in six of that age group. Some 265,000 people in that age group have been unemployed for more than a year.

Conservative Members should realise that that situation is a ticking time-bomb. A huge number of people have missed out on educational achievement and are drifting into permanent exclusion from mainstream society. If they occupy such a role, is it any wonder that we have seen a growth in anti-social activity among them?

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