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Mr. Cotter: Presumably, that is why the Conservative party does not support the concept of the regional development agencies, but our party believes that RDAs will work properly down to local level. That is the idea of RDAs. They should represent the local areas within their area of responsibility, so we do not accept what the hon. Gentleman is saying, although I listen to it with interest.
Mr. Collins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for listening with interest to what I am saying. For my constituents in South Lakeland, the north-west RDA has been a classic example of all mouth and no delivery--even more specifically, all committees and no delivery.
Mr. Boswell: Would my hon. Friend like to add to his collection the thought that I can leave my home, travel exclusively within the east midlands until I reach my regional seat of government in Nottingham and clock 100 miles in my car, by which time I could have gone to four or five other regional headquarters, including the capital, which are considerably nearer than that?
Mr. Collins: My hon. Friend makes his point admirably. It is regrettable that we are moving from a
system of genuine autonomy, with 72 or so TECs, to what will be, even at best, a much more centralised system, with 47 local learning and skills councils. By definition, on average, if we move from 72 to 47, areas will be roughly twice as large.
As we have seen, under the Bill there will be nothing like the level of autonomy that there was under the TEC system. That is to be regretted, although I recognise that the Government have approached the matter with the purest of best intentions and are keen to see an enhancement of learning and skills. The Government are acting not malevolently or maliciously, but on profoundly misguided advice.
My next point concerns another element that is inherent in the Bill. There will be a shift from TECs, which were private sector bodies, to a state-delivered system. I congratulate the Minister, who has previously been regarded as the absolute apotheosis of new Labour: he is supervising the first explicit act of nationalisation by the Government. There can be no doubt about it. TECs were private sector companies and the new system will be entirely within the public sector.
If there is any doubt about that, I refer people to page 46 of the explanatory notes, which talks about the effects of the Bill on public service manpower. It states:
Surely even this Government would not openly advocate nationalisation. Many has been the occasion when they have openly rejected it, yet all those reasons should apply here. We know that public sector control, ownership and delivery simply do not work in a business context. At the heart of business competitiveness and training for the future, we see an act of nationalisation. That is to be regretted and is against what the Government said they would do when they were in opposition and, indeed, against what they have continued to say that they were doing in office.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe rightly drew the parallel with what the Prime Minister said when he was the shadow Secretary of State for Employment before the 1992 general election. However, I remind him that the picture continued into the following Parliament.
The Investors in People programme was delivered by TECs. It continues to be a huge success. It has been one of the great achievements in training under both Administrations--before 1997 and after.
In 1995, I well remember that the Labour party announced with great fanfare that, as an institution, it would apply for Investors in People status. It invited local TECs to send inspectors round to validate Labour's internal training programmes. With great celebration, it unveiled the TEC Investors in People award outside what was then Labour party headquarters on Walworth road.
Even in the previous Parliament, there was no remote indication that the Government, on election, would abolish the TEC network. Quite the contrary; Labour was going out of its way to give the impression that it subscribed to all the principles of the network and to all the things that TECs were trying to do.
I know that many business people throughout the land feel, I regret, somewhat cheated. They thought that, when Labour came in, it would not abolish TECs. They thought that it would seek to modify them, to build on their successes and, no doubt, to alter them at the fringes, but not to abolish them outright.
Sadly, there is no doubt that abolition is what the Bill is about. Again, I turn to my favourite text, written by the Government in such admirably clear language. I cannot believe that it managed to get past Mr. Campbell and Downing street. Page 5 of the explanatory notes states clearly:
Mr. Hilary Benn (Leeds, Central):
If the hon. Gentleman is correct to say that it is a wanton act of vandalism, why has the CBI welcomed the Bill?
Mr. Collins:
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the CBI has said specifically that it wanted a majority of employer representatives on the learning and skills councils. The question to which I still await an answer from the Minister is why the Government have specifically rejected that advice.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the CBI on many occasions welcomed the establishment of the TEC network. It made it clear throughout the 1990s that it would not wish TECs to be abolished. Of course, the CBI recognises that the Government can decide to abolish TECs. It is full of business realists and will roll with the world as it is, but there is no doubt what their preferences are: an employer-led private sector organisation of the sort that the Government are abolishing, not the state- delivered system.
I mentioned that I would make a constituency point. The Bill deals with the future of the Further Education Funding Council and the new arrangements for that sector. There are two points. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead rightly addressed the concern that a number of us have: the Government seem to have a not particularly well hidden agenda to reduce the number of school sixth forms.
When my hon. Friend set out the strengths of the sixth form-delivered system of education, particularly in rural areas, a number of Labour Members expressed strong disagreement. They made it clear that they were happy to move towards a system of smaller numbers of larger deliverers of such organisational skills. They did not mind too much if rural sixth forms were reduced in number.
My hon. Friend gave many excellent reasons why that was to be regretted, but another should be brought up. Many of the best teachers in secondary schools find teaching in sixth forms the most exciting, intellectually challenging and desirable part of the job. If we take that away from them, undermine it or situate it on a different site, making it more difficult for them to do as much of
it as they have, we will further demoralise the teaching profession, which, as we all know, under successive Governments, has been sufficiently demoralised as it is, with all the paperwork and so on that it must deal with. That would be much regretted.
Secondly, I mention the way in which colleges of further education are funded. My local college, Kendal college, is at the heart of a very rural area. I was talking to its principal, Michael Wright, a little while ago. He expressed great concern about the way in which rural colleges of that sort are disadvantaged, compared with urban ones. The way that he put the point was to say that, because they had been very successful through most of the 1990s in attracting increasing numbers of students, they now find that they cannot access much of the genuinely welcome additional resources identified by the Government because they do not have enough of the right sort of students in their catchment area.
That is a genuine concern for rural colleges. I am worried that the new arrangements set out in the Bill will bring about even more centralisation and uniformity. As a result, the small rural colleges--which, by definition, form a minority within the overall pattern--are likely to find themselves more disadvantaged.
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):
I welcome the Bill, whose proposals I consider necessary.
The first TEC was established in 1990, as has been noted. The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who unfortunately has left the Chamber, seemed to be less upset at the Government's intention to change things than at their temerity in wanting to change what he had put in place. He seemed to be digging a large hole, and he should have stopped digging before his speech finished.
I shall concentrate on TECs, but I shall also mention the Further Education Funding Council, established in July 1992 by the previous Government on the basis of a White Paper published in 1991 entitled "Education and Training for the 21st Century". The structure thus established did not produce what the country needs in terms of education and training for this new century. That is why I consider the Bill both necessary and timely.
The Government have recognised the serious flaws in the present system. I hope that my remarks will make it clear that I do not share the enthusiasm for TECs evident in the amendment and in the contribution from the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe. The Bill makes positive proposals for higher and further education, training, co-ordination, organisation and funding.
Some of the measures associated with TECs remain welcome. For example, the Investors in People awards are well respected, but the record of TECs with regard to training and skills can best be described as patchy. That failing has resulted from the fundamental flaws in the way that TECs were set up.
The first problem was that the previous Conservative Government were so blinded by dogma that they set up TECs as private companies. They were not to be connected, even in a formal way, with the public or the public sector, but were to be separate, private companies--even though they are funded almost totally by the public purse.
A full six years after the first TEC was established, the Select Committee on Education and Employment stated, in its 1996 report, that it was
My experience is that nothing much has changed as we begin the 21st century. In my area, the demands of industry for training and retraining have not been met, and the skills gap is growing wider all the time. Recent figures show that the TEC in my area for years has been sitting on a drop-out and non-completion rate of 40 per cent. in its youth training programmes.
TECs have been notable for two other reasons. It is right that enterprise and enterprise activity should be given due prominence in training, but there has been a tendency to give it too much emphasis, at the expense of training. It is nice to have photographs in the press of presentations of Investors in People awards, and of other activities that colleges--quite rightly--undertake to gain public attention, but the day-to-day necessity of meeting, week in and week out, the training and skills demand of local industry and business does not get the headlines.
TECs have also been notable for building up their reserves which, in my area, amount to some £5 million. Given the gaps in the training on offer and the increasing size of the skills gap, it is legitimate to wonder what TECs are doing with such large amounts of money. When I asked that question in my area, I was told that it had to do with the TEC's credibility as a private company. In 1998, the Public Accounts Committee criticised those levels of reserves.
The FEFC decides on recurring and capital funds, and how they are allocated to individual colleges. It has a duty also to monitor the use of those funds and the financial health of colleges. They have not exercised that responsibility satisfactorily. We have seen well publicised results of that, and the major further education college in my area has suffered.
There has been an expansion in the number of students coming into the sector, but that may have had more to do with the financial health of the colleges than with the needs of business, industry, students and local communities.
Those vital aspects have suffered as a result. The Government proposals for a new framework for post-16 education and training are of profound importance.
I offer the Government some warning signals. I know that they do not intend to do this, but we do not want the creation of TECs mark II. There are some worrying signs that that may be a danger. The local learning and skills council in my area is based on the same geographical area as the TEC. I recognise that it might be appropriate in some circumstances to identify "sub-regional" on a county basis, but that should not apply everywhere.
I appreciate the Government's determination to reduce the 72 TECs to 47 local learning and skills councils. However, those councils are critical, as they must work within a framework set down by the national Learning and Skills Council. That delivery, how resources are used and how the local learning and skills councils raise participation, attainment and skills in their area are vital to the process.
The Bill, the explanatory memorandum and the excellent document produced by the Library all contain references to the word "local", with reference to local needs, the local labour market, local FE colleges, varied local priorities, local development and innovation adapted to local needs--all the emphasis is on local. However, we need to define what we mean by local.
Staffordshire is divided into north Staffordshire and south Staffordshire--completely different areas. North Staffordshire is industrially based, and has had massive changes in its economic base. Some 94 per cent. of students in local FE colleges come from the north Staffordshire conurbation. In south Staffordshire, about 90 per cent. of FE students come from that area. There are distinct local needs in an area such as Staffordshire, which has about 1 million people. That will strike a chord with many hon. Members.
I am not advocating that we increase the number of councils, but it is essential that local learning and skills councils are monitored carefully. It must be made clear that councils must exercise flexibility that truly reflects local needs, which may differ widely within their areas. That is essential.
Although we have heard much from the Opposition about how important it is that training and skills organisations are business led, we have lessons to learn on that. I believe that, for dogmatic reasons, the previous Government set up TECs as private companies. In addition, at a time--the late 1980s and 1990s--when business and industry had effectively opted out of training, the previous Government gave the helm to the very people who had shown by their record that they were not really interested. That is why the previous Government are to be condemned. Businesses wondered what they were doing, and why, and that was a profound flaw.
When we talk about 40 per cent. of the membership of the local learning skills councils having substantial business and commercial experience, let us not, for goodness' sake, make the same mistake as the previous Government. We must not be beguiled by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), who reiterated the old, wasteful argument about public bad, private good. There should be a balance. I certainly reject the idea that the only way in which those essential services will be effectively delivered is by giving the
private sector the lead. Many people in the non-private commercial and business sector, the public sector and the voluntary sector have the expertise to make this work.
There will be an increase in the number of staff employed in the public services because some of the activities of the LSC and the ALI were formerly conducted by private companies.
In addition to centralisation, we have nationalisation.
The Government issued contractual notices to TECs in England in July 1999 informing them that their licences will expire on 25 March 2001. As a result, no organisation will be able to trade as a TEC.
That is outright abolition. There are no ifs, buts or maybes. It is an act of wanton vandalism, as my right hon. and learned Friend said. It is not a modification or reform of TECs: It is abolition.
difficult to gain an overall impression of the scale of TEC funding and activity because they are so fragmented.
I am sure that I do not need to remind the House of which party was in control in 1996 and to which party a majority of members of that Committee belonged. A full six years after the great innovation established by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe, Conservative Members were admitting that no one knew where TECs were going, or how they were using their money. The Government are therefore well justified in wanting to get to grips with that unacceptable situation.
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