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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am mindful of the time, so I will keep my comments brief. I join all noble Lords in wishing the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth well. This has been a very interesting debate. I am glad that so many Members of this House with experience and interest in this sector were able to join us. Their contributions to the Bill will be invaluable and I hope that we will hear more from them as the Bill moves through its later stages. Many noble Lords have raised concerns over the lack of consultation on Clause 19. I hope the Minister will reassure the House that he will listen closely to the highly experienced voices in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Lowe of Dalston, and other noble Lords highlighted the need to ensure far greater access to education, employment and training for people with disabilities. I agree that providing access enables enjoyment of a whole range of other life chances. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, misunderstood my noble friend Lady Morris of Bolton. She, like the rest of us on these Benches, wants to see more powers devolved to FE colleges.No one can argue that, alongside academicand vocational achievements, the development of interpersonal and communication skills are not crucial. The noble Lords who made that pointoffer great insight into why many sections of our community fail to aspire to, or have confidence in, any form of education or training. The Bill is certainly in need of as much constructive criticism as this House can offer. On these Benches we want, as my noble friend Lady Morris said, to use the opportunity represented by the Bill to improve the independence, strength and flexibility of the further education sector. We find it extraordinary that the Bill contains nothing that would address the challenges before us, which the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, and Sir Andrew Foster before him, so clearly identified. Instead, this Bill takes steps to give yet more control to the LSC, an unelected, unaccountable body. The one step taken that could improve the status of colleges—that of giving them the power to award foundation degrees—has been taken in a way which one would think was designed to cause divisions between universities and colleges. It has been done without consultation or explanation, and we are still in the dark about what standards will be applied to maintain the credibility of foundation degrees. As has been said so many times today, what will happento the relationships that have grown up between colleges and universities? What effect will this haveon students’ progression from further to higher education? One area on which the Bill is extremely clear is the new powers that are being devolved to the LSC. Ironically, this is an area that the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, barely touched on in his report. Of course the complexity and confusion that pervades further education, with 17 different bodies overseeing colleges, has an effect on the provision these colleges can offer. When the funding application for a Train to Gain programme runs to over 100 pages, it is no wonder that we are not seeing the progress we would like. LSC complexity will only be worsened by the intervention powers in the Bill. We have been reassured by the Minister that these are merely backstop powers and that the LSC is being given the power to sack a college’s governing body or any of its staff, only to encourage governing bodies to keep a watchful eye on their institutions. It is hard to see why these powers will be a more effective incentive when held by the LSC than when held by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has not used these powers once in the last 10 years. It is completely unnecessary to create yet another layer of guidance, reports and policy documents, and yet another threat for the LSC to hang over colleges’ heads. This inability to trust colleges to manage themselves is the result of continuing disdain on the part of the Government for skills and vocational training. I found my noble friend Lord Baker’s calls for training to be made available to those over 14 extremely interesting. The only excuse for forcing children to remain in academic rather than vocational study, beyond the acquisition of core skills such as numeracy and literacy, is that the Government believe that vocational skills are only acceptable when other possibilities have been exhausted. Government policy seems to see vocational training as a last resort intervention, only to be offered to people in danger of failing all other options. For example, there is nothing in the Bill to address the continuing focus of resources for career guidance towards the young and low-skilled at the cost of adults and those wishing to train to higher levels. Again, that was identified by the noble Lord, Lord Leitch. The Bill should be about giving skills training the status and respect that it deserves by giving it an identity of its own; an effective preparation for the skilled jobs that this country desperately needs filling. We are already seeing the rapid decline of low-skilled jobs, not only in manufacturing but in the services. An ageing population makes it crucial that we give people of all ages the opportunity to reskill and upskill. The Government must stop relying on further education to plug the gaps left by the failings in the school system. It is appalling that so many young people are unable to read and write to the level of an 11 year-old, but it is not right that further education should pick up the tab to the exclusion of all else. As my noble friend Lady Morris made clear, we believe that the way forward is not the control freak approach favoured by the Government. We must allow colleges to improve the status and relevance of the courses that they offer by responding flexibly to local demand from both students and employers. We must increase employer investment in further education. I do not just mean investment of money, but also of time and influence. Further education needs business experience and support; a real partnership where employers and educators together provide the best education possible for students. If the Bill is anything to go by, the Government still have a long way to go before they really believe that further education colleges are to be trusted to provide the skills training that this country so badly needs. We on these Benches will try to improve the Bill as it passes through the House to take more account of the sensible proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Leitch. I hope that the Minister, now that he has had some time to assimilate the report, will respond positively to this effort to make the Bill an effective response to the challenges that his own Government’s reports have identified.