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Further and Higher Education (Employer Engagement)

: I do reflect on such issues, and it is welcome to debate them. I do not think that the proportion of A-levels undertaken in FE as against school sixth forms is set in tablets of stone for ever and a day. I add the note of caution that there would be a significant financial consequence in deciding to transplant A-levels from general FE to school sixth forms. That would cost money that would not otherwise be spent on the sector. It better suits the purposes and needs of some young people to undertake A-level teaching within an FE college rather than a school sixth form. However, I am not dogmatic on those issues. On the hon. Gentleman's point about the Holbeach campus, the work that he identified as being undertaken there is exactly the kind of joined-up, collaborative working that we want to see between the further education sector, universities and businesses. On his point about status for vocational education and skills, the skills academies will help us, embedding to a greater extent the vocational mission within the core mission of a further education college. As I said earlier, the recognition of diplomas by institutions regarded as being among the best in the country in the higher education sector will help. One of the key aims is enabling more young people who choose the vocational route to enter higher education. One of the most challenging statistics in my job is that, if someone has two A-levels, they have a 90 per cent. chance of going to university. If, however, they have the vocational level 3 equivalent, they have only a 50 per cent. chance of going on to higher education. That is the scale of the challenge we face—how to make it clearer, more easily identified and better signposted, so that those young people who choose the vocational route but want ultimately to go on to higher education can do so. My final point about the status of the sector is about further education colleges themselves. They do tremendous work up and down the country. The FE sector probably transforms more lives potentially than schools or universities.