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Further and Higher Education (Employer Engagement)

: I do not want to get into hot water by rising to my hon. Friend's intervention and having to explain my metaphor to a degree that would test its validity beyond reason. Suffice it to say that the changing demographics mean that more people are older and therefore less likely to be engaged in the work force. It may also mean that even though the skills of those who are actively employed are being increased, more people are retiring than are coming into the work force. I hope that I have made that sufficiently clear and that my hon. Friend now understands it. As an aside, while my hon. Friend was fine dining at Balliol college, Oxford, I was engaged in my higher education at Nottingham university, which he revered in his earlier contribution. I was delighted: not only did he detail my former alma mater—the place of my education—with such reverence, but the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) mentioned my birthplace, Woolwich, and the place that I was educated, Eltham. It has been like drowning: I have seen my life flash before my very eyes as we have deliberated on these important matters. I will, I hope, emerge from the tank without drowning. I also hope that the Minister, having followed my advice, will emerge from it too. There are real worries about basic skills, and their effect on individuals and the economy. In addition, there are worries about the appropriateness of placements from further education colleges into the work force. I raised the issue yesterday with the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills and he tells me that he anticipated my fear. I think that he said that he had civil servants working on it as I spoke. That is another aspect of the difficulty of the link between further education and the world of work. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said that fewer then 40 per cent. of employers think that the current arrangements produce a work force skilled to do the job. I think that she drew on a survey that was completed last year. That again raises questions about effectiveness, which I hope the Minister will deal with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the standard of training currently offered in the construction industry may make the situation worse; 40 per cent. of those who provide training were judged by the adult learning inspectorate to offer inadequate training, and only 34 per cent. of trainees in that sector complete their apprenticeship. Therefore, there are issues to do with effectiveness, engagement and appropriateness. We have had a useful debate that has illustrated the broad consensus about the nature of the challenges. They were eloquently identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley—and by me, but with much less skill. Let me move on to the dream. I know that Members have been looking forward to this; I can see that my hon. Friend has been. In the short time that I have been studying these matters in detail, I have had an emerging vision: it is of greater synergy between all the elements that provide training, education and employment. I invite the Minister to come to my constituency after he has been to Eltham, or vice versa. He could visit my birthplace in Woolwich—that would be a treat for him—although he would have to travel there from Eltham. He can then move on to Holbeach in the Lincolnshire fens. When he is there, he can visit the Holbeach campus, which my hon. Friend is going to visit on 3 March. There he will be able to see a marvellous example of the work of local FE colleges, the university of Lincoln and local employers drawn largely from the food industry. At that place, those agencies are collaborating to provide high-quality skilling, a high level of expertise that would not normally be available in Holbeach, and a service to local businesses that they invest in, but that they would not have the resources to be able to deliver on their own. That provides a strong example of the synergy I envisage, but it is not the only one, of course. Members present will have examples from their own areas. The point is that there is good practice in this regard, and we need to examine ways to export that. The second part of my dream is about specialism. I have mentioned it twice already, but there is no harm in repeating a good idea. I have increasingly come to the view that the kind of specialism that my hon. Friend mentioned in respect of higher education—and which has long been the experience in higher education—needs to be considered more thoroughly in respect of further education. That happens to some extent already; certain FE colleges get a reputation for doing particular work. However, we could go further; for example, where a part of the country has a dominant business sector—I have mentioned the food industry in my area—it would be entirely appropriate for local FE provision to work in tandem with that specialism. Expertise of national, or international, quality might be developed around that kind of partnership. There are also some schools that are doing excellent work in respect of vocational education. I draw hon. Members' attention to the Gleed girls technology college in Spalding. It is a splendid place. I was recently there, and I spoke with the new headmistress—I do not like to use the modern idiom, so I do not say head teacher—and she told me that the school has recently acquired vocational specialist status. It is looking at ways to work afresh with local further education and local industry. One of the problems in an area such as Spalding is that the biggest further education colleges are a fair way off—Boston, Stamford, Peterborough—so giving young people the opportunities that they deserve is quite difficult in practical terms. That is what I meant about bringing learning to the learners. We must think imaginatively about how to make the best use of technology and the provision of resources and expertise, so that people from the age of 14—I might even argue that it should happen from the age of 11, but that is a debate for another day, rather like the one on Hereward the Wake—can be engaged in a synergistic process running through to the world of work. That process might involve specialisation reflecting the local opportunities available to people as they go through education and training and into employment. It is always good to know the weaknesses of one's own ideas. The risk is that the process would reinforce local employment patterns. Where the local employment base is narrow, it might discourage the development of other opportunities. However, the benefits outweigh that risk. The process would ensure a better match between supply and demand in terms of skills and economic need, and would prevent duplication or even contradiction among schools, colleges, other providers and local industry. I should like the Minister to consider specialisation. I should also like the Minister to consider status. I mentioned parity of esteem. We need to raise the status of vocational education and skills. Four hundred years ago, most people were illiterate, but they were not uneducated. The modern notion that education is exclusively about book learning is just that: a modern notion. I want us to value the skill of people's hands as well as the skill of their minds. When we look at the place in which we now sit, with all the beauty that it encompasses, and imagine the skills that created it, how can we believe that those involved were anything less than highly educated? We need to raise the status of such skills. That is easy to say and difficult to achieve. I would happily join the Minister and Members of other parties—we must draw the line somewhere, but on this occasion I am prepared to include the Liberals—in thinking about how to raise the status of skills and vocational education.