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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

My Lords, unlike the Front Benches opposite, and like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, I welcome the Bill. It is a technical Bill, but it is also a facilitating Bill. It improves the 2000 Act in a way that makes it more possible for us to work towards the targets set by the Leitch report. They are very ambitious targets given where we are at present but, as most people will accept, they are the minimum required if we are to match our international competitors. As the Minister indicated, there is much in the Bill to be welcomed. Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, I particularly welcome the intention for the powers to be devolved down. I do not think that it is a centralising Bill; it is a devolving Bill. The Government are to set the overall national objectives and then powers will be devolved down to the national and regional LSCs to develop strategies. I hope that the Secretary of State will not be too prescriptive in how the objectives are to be realised. Equally, I hope that the national LSC will give much greater scope to the regional LSCs than does the present bureaucratic body and that after setting annual budgets the national LSC will allow flexibility and financial virement to the regions to enable them to develop appropriate strategies. I also hope thatcare will be taken in making appointments to these bodies. Those appointed should be familiar with the problems of the region and with the education and discrimination problems mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Low. I approach the Bill from a regional perspective, particularly from a Yorkshire and Humber viewpoint. In Part 1, Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State new flexibility in allowing bodies other than the LSC to formulate strategies. London, in particular, has been mentioned because of its acute problems. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and my noble friend Lady Blackstone, I believe that there are other areas that would qualify under this clause. What will be the process for promoting this flexibility to those other areas? I have in mind, of course, the Yorkshire and Humber region, which has its own very real problems. There is under-performance in that region on all the key indicators. In its regional strategy, Yorkshire Forward is addressing this historical, cultural and industrial inheritance. Progress is being made to close the gap between the region and national averages, but we are not yet there—let alone meeting anything like Leitch targets. There are historical, cultural and industrial problems still to be overcome, especially in those parts of the region where industries have been run down and we are trying to re-industrialise. In some of these areas there are entrenched anti-learning and anti-education views, especially about continuous learning. After all, the previous experience has been that you learnt either by sitting by Nelly or by watching Jimmy. Real educational and training progressions have not been experienced. Often, this covers the generations of a family and it is not just confined to elderly people. Nor is it confined to families alone. There is also a lack of demand for training from some employers, thus denying the Leitch employer-led approach. Employers operating in low added-value markets have no intention or incentive to finance training or utilise a more highly skilled workforce. This needs to be addressed in the regional strategy. On the other hand, there is a tremendous resource in the region. The eight universities produce excellent, employable graduates—40 per cent of them come from the sciences and engineering. Most of the graduates, however, seek careers outside the region. The universities and employers are aware of this and are working with Yorkshire Forward and the LSC to try to address it. An increasing number of regional students, many from ethnic communities, could help to stem the leakage. Another encouraging sign is the success of school non-achievers—children who have left school without qualifications but are gaining level 2 qualifications during the 16 to 19 period. This is catching up to a low level instead of building on the achievements of schools. The new qualification to be phased in from next year could be a great help in this respect. I am sorry if all this sounds negative. It is not meant to be. It is a question of facing up to the realities of a region where traditional industries have collapsed and where we face new problems. Of course, there have been some great successes in the region:the development of new industries; the building of critical masses and industrial clusters; and so on. For example, there are areas in North Yorkshire that exceed national averages. In South Yorkshire—one of the areas that has suffered greatly from industrial collapse—the National Metals Technology Centre, based at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, is succeeding well. These are all factors that are being built into a broad regional strategy, embedding the supply and the demand of education and training, together with innovation, into a high priority. There can be only one overall strategy within a region. I suggest that this requires an RDA approach with a strong LSC input—not the other way around. I suggest that this could be more clearly recognised and written into the Bill. I would like the Minister’s comments on that point. I turn briefly to other areas. First, I endorse all that has been said on Clause 19. This is a wrong move and I am in complete agreement with my noble friend Lady Blackstone has said, and with what, I am sure, my noble friend Lady Warwick will say, on this. I am also concerned that the Bill does not give enough priority to the very real problem of dealing with the 70 per cent of the workforce that is already in employment and will be so in 2020. Their retraining and reskilling should be a top priority. This has not been the case under the current LSC strategy, where the balance has favoured the 16 to 19 year-olds. We all want to give 16 to 19 year-olds a proper opportunity, but given the declining numbers in this age group, and therefore their declining significance in the labour force, we need to bring about a greater balance. This point is not fully addressed in the Bill. We will deal with other aspects of the Bill at later stages. Overall, I think the Bill points us in the right direction.