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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

My Lords, there is a wonderful book called Bluff your Way in Public Speaking, which has the advice, ““Tell’em once, tell’em twice, and when they have heard it and relaxed, tell’em again””. So I shall repeat some of the comments made by noble Lords. I must declare an interest in the Bill as chair of council at St George’s University of London, where we are proud of the progress that we have made in widening access to medicine and the biosciences and in forging links to other HE institutions and local FE colleges. Like others, I am puzzled by the timing of the Bill. No doubt, the Minister and his officials knew what was going to be in the report by the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, but most of us have had exactly seven days to digest its contents and no time in which to discuss it with colleagues and local partner organisations before the debate today. The Minister has a reputation for consultation and careful listening. We would have liked the time to do the same. Most of the Billseems to be about the regional reorganisation ofthe Learning and Skills Council, even though, Inote, Leitch cautions against time-consuming restructuring. Let no one mistake this: it will be an 18-month diversion from the job in hand and, as always, we risk losing some of the good work that is in train. I am particularly concerned about the possible loss of progress for young people with a disability. The LSC launched recently its first national strategy for learners with a learning and/or physical disability in the FE system. The Disability Rights Commission is concerned that, with the radical structural changes proposed in the Bill, there is a real risk that the strategy will run into the sand. The Government have outlined an ambitious vision for improving the chances of disabled people. We know that, if a young person with a disability loses six months of education or training between 16 and 18, that is the single most powerful predictor of unemployment at age 21. The FE system has a vital role to play in achievingthe Government’s vision for young people with a disability. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that a rigorous disability equality impact assessment will be published on the Bill. Nevertheless, I understand the drivers to regionalisation, but larger geographical organisations often lose flexibility and local responsiveness. Are the Government sure that we shall gain more than we lose? If the Minister can say that he is sure, why are the changes in London proposed only on a temporary interim basis? Doesn’t London need more certainty and permanence about the arrangements, if it is to take the full benefits of regionalisation? Like others here today with knowledge of the higher education sector, I am absolutely mystified by the notion of FE colleges being granted the power to award foundation degrees. We have several tiers of types of university already. Do we really want another layer of quasi-academic institutions producing qualifications called degrees without having to forge links to higher education? I grant that people say that the process is slow and expensive, so let us findways of speeding it up. But it is often a matterof developing trusting relationships between organisations. Speeding up trust is rather a difficult matter. The finances are a matter for discussion between the Higher Education Funding Council and government. There are other ways of solving the problem. The whole point of foundation degrees was that they were meant to lead on to opportunities for full honours degrees, but I fear that they will now become stand-alone diplomas without offering the real possibility of progressing up the learning ladder. I know that they are stand-alone qualifications at present for some of the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, outlined. But who are we kidding? The students? The employers? If FE colleges can go it alone, they will. It is darned hard work creating close links between further education and higher education. This proposal jeopardises much good work that has been done. Perhaps I may give two or three examples known to me locally that crucially involve higher education. First, from my own institution, St George’s, we have a health sciences foundation degree essentially to train paramedics from the ambulance services. The degree is delivered by Kingston University and St George’s in conjunction with local FE colleges and NHS ambulance trusts in south-west London. It is an example of how HEIs, even traditional elitist ones like medical schools, can get involved in luring people on to a career ladder where the sky is the limit. My second example is the unique foundation degree in crime science and forensic investigation at Queen Mary, University of London, to which I was formerly attached. It has a long and successful track record of working in partnership with business. Begun last year, the idea was born out of academic forensic expertise inside the university and from an existing biomedical collaboration with the excellent City and Islington College in London. The degree is taught jointly by Queen Mary and City and Islington College and is designed for students who wish to pursue a career as a scene of crime officer in the police service or as a serving police officer. It was developed in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police’s directorate of forensic services, offers scientifically robust training and develops skills in pure and applied biology that mean that the world is the oyster of the people coming out of that training course. That mix of expertise is possible only within the framework of this joint higher education/further education collaboration. What have been the spin-offs of other foundation courses between Queen Mary and Tower Hamlets College? One of the spin-offs of the developing joint foundation degrees has been, for example, the linksto all the schools in Tower Hamlets looking at curriculum development on a wider framework, in particular, as noble Lords will realise, because of the abiding deep interest of Professor Adrian Smith, the principal of Queen Mary, in improving maths education. Putting together foundation degrees has generated a profound collaboration in raising mathematics education in schools throughout Tower Hamlets. It would not have happened without some kind of incentive to such work. Like others, I see no sense in creating competition for the awarding of foundation degrees when we have only just started on a collaborative approach that is already beginning to show real, tangible benefits for the local communities. I am seriously concerned that those collaborations will be undermined by Clause 19.