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5.49 pm
Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). I paid particular attention to what he said and, if I find myself serving on the Committee empanelled to consider the Bill, it may be something in which I take an interest. I listened with sympathy to his comments and to those of his right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy). The House may not know that there is a reason for my doing so, as recently—I hasten to add, as the right hon. Member for Torfaen is aware, that this was not on my own account but because of family connections with Wales and with education in Wales—I was invited to join the board of a higher education corporation in Wales, so perhaps there will be contributions from both Government and Opposition Members on the matter in Committee.
The Welsh take education, particularly further education, seriously, and rightly so, for the reasons that the right hon. Gentlemen gave. The House will know that, in my view, further education is a very important sector indeed, and it is dear to my heart. It was with some concern that I realised that it was 12 years ago that I demitted my ministerial responsibility for it under the previous Government. One loses the command of detail that one has as a Minister but, nevertheless, when one revisits the subject one finds that the issues are exactly the same and, in certain cases, have not advanced as much as one would hope. I am afraid that that is what I find to be the case now.
In addition to my accolades for the two right hon. Gentlemen from Wales, may I praise the Secretary of State for his characteristically cool introduction to the subject, and praise my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), who made all the spiky criticisms appropriate to the Bill? May I pay tribute, too, to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who has hugely advanced the salience of skills, as well as interest in them among members of my party and in the national debate? He is a very practical person, who understands the importance both of building on the subject and its contribution to our national life.
In looking at further education, we start with some difficulties of definition. I have noticed that, typically, further education is defined as a negative. To take the
activity itself, it is something that one does not do at school or in higher education—it is somewhere in between. As for its role in the delivery of education, is it vocational? What does that mean, except that it is not academic or is not specifically job-related, which overlooks the fact that the majority of A-levels are delivered in further education colleges, rather than in sixth forms?
There is some difficulty, too, in tying down the institutions themselves. There are further education colleges, nearly all of which are public corporations under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, but we must consider, too, the role of private training establishments and of sixth forms themselves. May I tell Ministers—because sometimes I think that the impression is given in the House that, on their part, nothing good was invented before 1997, and on our part that nothing good has happened since then—that there have been constructive developments in beginning to integrate the offers between schools and colleges and looking at the perspective from 14 to 19 rather than from the end of compulsory schooling only?
In relation to that point, may I rehearse the offer that I made as a Minister more than a dozen years ago, and offer the modest sum of a pound to anyone who can find a better title than “16 to 19” for the young people concerned? The ground work has been done—it is now “14 to 19”—but no one has come up with the magic phrase. We still tend to look at further education as something in the middle; something between childhood and adult life; and something that is somewhere between school and university. We do not really give it the value that it should have in its own right.
Ms Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): In support of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, will he acknowledge that in relation to young people with special needs, the artificial boundary between 19 and adulthood is completely irrelevant? Many young people with special needs are still in need of further education and training into their early 20s.
Mr. Boswell: I could not agree more. The whole business of transition planning for all children, particularly those with special educational needs, is unsatisfactory and inadequate. We do not pay it enough attention—sometimes it is not even delivered to statutory levels—and we ought to pay it much more attention. The irony of the situation—I said that further education is defined by its not being something else—is that further education is the one sector of post-compulsory school life that is universal. One day, half our young people may well have some experience of higher education by the age of 30—incidentally, a great deal of that will be delivered in further education anyway, as has been said—but we must remember, too, that when many people graduate they are not job-ready or employable, and need to acquire further education skills, whether it is enhanced IT, languages and so on, so that they are fit for the specific job that they will do. Even if someone becomes a barrister, they have to do a vocational course. However that is expressed, and whatever the legal label, it is an act of continuing and further education.
We should therefore not look at the subject as an easy progression ever upwards and onwards which culminates in some higher degree; we should look at
what is necessary at the start of employment, going on to all the many changes that we anticipate in someone’s working life—perhaps they will have three changes of employment—in which they have to return all the time to acquire vocational skills, at whatever level is appropriate.
Mr. Stewart Jackson: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s long experience in this area. Does he share my great concern that many young people at age 19, including those who have taken part, for instance, in the YMCA Foyer project in my Peterborough constituency, must because of benefit rules make a painful choice between continuing to study and continuing to live in their chosen residence? They lose housing benefit if they continue to study, and that issue should be looked at again by the Department for Work and Pensions and by Ministers generally.
Mr. Boswell: That is certainly worth revisiting. There have always been difficulties with it and with the 16-hour rule. No one is advancing unlimited resources tonight. As a general principle, we must promote people’s studies, not frustrate them in their pursuit of those studies.
There are concerns across the piece—and they have surfaced a little today, particularly in relation to the controversial clauses on dismissal—about the quality of the delivery of further education. One would not be surprised if a sector involving 4 million students was subject to patchiness. One must recognise, too, that it is not simply the objective measurement of the grades attained by students taking A-levels in general FE colleges that is important, but the value added by a wide range of people, and not automatically the high flyers who are encouraged to stay on in school sixth forms, for example.
A final problem in that area is the question of status. I had a telling exchange in my first two weeks in the Department of Education with a senior official, for whom I had the highest respect. A document came up saying, “This will require two A-levels.” I knew that I needed to put down a marker, so I said very firmly, and in public, “Or, I take it, the equivalent vocational qualification.” He turned round, with an angelic smile on his face, and said, “That, of course, Minister, goes without saying.” He could not have been more eloquent about the way in which we still default to the academic model.
I therefore welcome the Bill’s practical focus on what further education does and how it works. At the same time, however, I celebrate FE’s role in what I used to call the Heineken effect of education—it reaches the parts that other measures cannot reach. I want to emphasise, too, its role in the midfield. I once delivered a lecture in Berlin on the British politician as a midfield player. I think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not wish me to go too far down that road, but I do see further education as the midfield, moving forward on its own account, delivering and receiving the ball, and being able to meet all its objectives in a way that no other sector can.
My reservation about the Bill is that it hardly exemplifies what an American President once described, rather inelegantly, as “the vision thing”. I shall come back to that before I conclude, but I am surprised by its title.
Perhaps another essay could be written about the escalation of Bill titles, but it is now extremely unfashionable to attach the phrase “miscellaneous provisions” to any measure. I think that this ought to be called the Further Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. A more substantial response to Leitch may come along in the future, but this is a tidying-up exercise and not a major piece of legislation.
I shall spare the Minister the inelegance of looking at the numerous speeches that I made during the passage of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. I said then that I did not like a structure that had a central point and 47 local delivery points in the same model. I must congratulate the Government on beginning—rather slowly and at some expense—to claw themselves back to the Conservative model of the 1990s, which involved a Further Education Funding Council and a modest representation in nine English regions. In my view, that representation was perhaps over modest, as there is a useful planning role to be fulfilled alongside the central model, but all the bureaucracy that we have had since then has not yet entirely disappeared. Even attenuated, the total cost of the LSC bureaucracy comes to £1.8 billion—a very heavy burden, and it comes out of what is available for front-line education.
I wish the Government good luck with their proposed new regime incorporating the Mayor of London, but that will add another body. Characteristically, the only two bodies being removed by the Bill are the panels serving young and adult learners. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, with which I am still involved, shares my concern about the position of adult learners. Most of the LSC’s expenditure has been concentrated on the cohort of young learners—that is, those at the 16 to 19 school-leaving age—but their numbers are about to decline. That means that the people who must be upskilled for employment will come from the existing adult labour force. We have somehow managed to reduce still further the direct representation of adult education interests in the LSC. That can be overcome, but I am serious when I say that we must strike a better balance.
I share the two reservations about the Bill already expressed by various hon. Members. The first has to do with the “sack the principals” clause, which I find difficult in practice. It has been suggested that it might be useful in an emergency, but any hand-in-the-till problem can be overcome—or should be—by the governors. Typically, a much longer period of dysfunction will be involved: as I said in exchanges with the right hon. Member for Torfaen, it will be difficult to sack someone without a proper, in-depth investigation. After that, the matter can be brought to the governors, and they can assume their responsibility. My late father brought me up on the maxim of never hiring a dog and barking oneself. If we are prepared to give colleges and governors their freedom, they should be allowed to use it. The process will go wrong occasionally, and mechanisms—including financial sanctions—exist to rectify matters when that happens, but we must not work on the assumption that colleges and governors are always on sufferance, because they are not.
My second difficulty has to do with the powers to award foundation degrees. Again, I have no objection in principle—indeed, as a strong supporter of further education, I rather welcome them. However, I can see
all the difficulties that will be encountered with articulating them with progression, the interests of the modern universities, and the wider sector. Credit accumulation is one matter that has not been discussed so far. Can we be sure that a given institution will continue to exist? Another problem has to do with the “Bologna” process: I do not want a person from a less functional higher education system in another EU member state saying, “Not only have we to swallow your three-year first degrees, but what about that further education college that is now issuing its own degrees?” That is a real worry.
A deeper worry is the relationship between an FE college and progression. I have heard various eloquent presentations about what is good in the Bill, but anything that causes a college to be isolated, with no reference to the schools with which it should be working in partnership as people arrive or to the higher education institutions to which they should progress naturally, would be a mistake. We need high standards, with FE colleges offering the maximum opportunity and progression.
I said earlier that my concerns were about the Bill’s lack of forward vision. Getting the administration right is important, but the Leitch agenda is not really addressed. No doubt that will be the subject of debate in the future, but I believe that the Government may be placing too much emphasis on train to gain. It may be a good idea, but we need the maximum number of potential vehicles to attract people into further education. Individual accounts and the self-management of learning are part of that.
The Bill is also silent about qualification issues. They may be nuts and bolts matters, but they are very important. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant spoke about getting the diplomas right, but it is also about getting the right context for academic qualifications and what employers are likely to specify. We must also ensure that the relationship with apprenticeships is appropriate: I am still not clear whether diplomas parallel apprenticeships, or are alternatives to them, or whether they offer a natural progression to higher education. All those relationships need careful attention.
Mr. Hayes: As ever, my hon. Friend speaks with great authority on these matters. Will he comment on the idea that the fit between qualifications is not as it might be, and that that is a key factor in undermining their credibility? Employers do not know how one qualification fits with another as clearly as they ought to.
Mr. Boswell: I agree with that idea, which is perhaps a subset of a problem about which no one would argue—that employers need to be involved much more actively in the whole process of considering these matters. However, they should not adopt a purely literal approach, and believe that they can ring up and get a group of people who are absolutely ready for employment. An employee needs to be able to perform a particular job, developing all the while and then moving on to even more responsible roles.
My final point has to do with something that has been omitted from the Bill. I shall modestly puff the Post-16 Education and Training Bill, which received about 12 minutes of consideration on Friday, when other matters were also considered. It was introduced by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee, and I am a co-sponsor of it, although I did not give tongue when it was debated.
The Post-16 Education and Training Bill aims at providing some important elements in the transition mentioned by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) in her earlier intervention. That Bill focuses partly on special educational needs, but more generally on mentoring, proper assessment before people leave compulsory education, proper work experience, support and careers advice. In that way, it would give people guidance along a path towards employers who are better informed about the process. The mechanisms would always involve further education and include appropriate qualifications. If we can adopt that approach, we will begin to draw the elements of the system together, and prevent them from operating separately as they sometimes have in the past.
In conclusion, the Bill can be quite useful, although we have reservations, which have been expressed in the reasoned amendment. However, we need not oversell the legislation: it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for progress in this area. It will not, except in exceptional circumstances, help further education colleges or training providers if it mires them in bureaucracy or trips them up and questions their governance, and it will not win the battle of vocational credibility on its own.
We have to ask two questions. First, how can we, through the Bill and other actions that the Government are taking, more actively involve employers in specifying and helping to create the right framework for skills so that they can tell us what they want in a balanced way and we can make it clear that the system can respond? Secondly—this is equally important because it takes two to tango—how successful will the Bill and other Government measures be in attracting learners back into learning to upskill themselves and build the skills that are essential for national competitiveness, in which all the reports I have seen show we are, despite our efforts, sadly lacking?
6.11 pm
Ms Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): I follow what I thought was an incredibly thoughtful and well-considered speech by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell). I share his commitment to further education and I thought that I would start my speech by outlining my nigh-on 20-year involvement with further education.
I was a full-time vocational student in an FE college from 16 to 18. I moved on to work full-time and became a part-time adult evening class student for three years at my local college, where I studied A-levels, taking a two-year course and then a one-year course. Not surprisingly, given what FE had done for me and the opportunities that it had given me, after university I ended up back in further education where I spent nine years as a tutor. I was also a governor at our local
college—not the one I worked at, but a different one—and a cabinet member for education and training. So I have been involved in further education across the range: I have studied full-time and part-time and been an adult learner, a tutor, a governor and a strategic director involved in where the city of Sheffield was going in terms of its further education and post-16 provision.
It is important to set out in some detail what is special about further education and to measure that against the proposals in the Bill. I want to talk first about the quality of the tuition that I received as a learner in further education, because, too often, it is assumed that the quality of that tuition is generally lower than the quality of that received in sixth forms or universities. I would contest that quite seriously because the tuition that I received—even at the vocational level as a 16-year-old girl—was excellent; it was stretching and tough and it delivered.
Mr. Boswell: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her generous personal remarks. Would she not also agree—I am sure that she has seen this many times—that one of the most heartening, but at the same time sobering, things is to go into a further education college and see a group of young people who have been quite demotivated by their experiences at school suddenly find that there is a vocational relevance to what they have to do? Instead of finding work unattractive, they actually fire up and can make a really positive contribution.
Ms Smith: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Indeed, as someone who tore up all her school books and put them in the bin on the last day of school, I was absolutely delighted to find that FE was exactly the place for me, and I saw that as a tutor with the hundreds of students who moved through the FE institution that I worked for.
I studied shorthand and was the highest-achieving shorthand writer in more than a decade at my local FE institution. That in itself opened up an alternative career choice. If I had taken that route, I might well have been up in the Press Gallery taking the notes on this debate, rather than down here delivering one of the speeches. I chose not to take that route and, in many ways, I am probably grateful for that—although we very much value the work that is done in the Gallery.
I want to draw attention to the commitment of the many students that I taught in FE. That relates to the hon. Gentleman’s point. In my adult learning role, I have witnessed many students who have been willing to take time off work and to come in of an afternoon to receive one-to-one tuition in order to achieve their goals—in order to achieve the GCSE English or the key skills that they needed to move on to an alternative career or to move up their chosen career structure. I know that students took time off work to attend special study periods and even to do their exams, because not all employers recognise the importance of their employees voluntarily taking up part-time evening class opportunities in education and are not even willing to give them time off for exams. That is an important point. When I took my A-level exams, I had to take annual leave. As a Government, we should think about that issue.
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