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World Class Skills 2020

It is a pleasure, Mr. Hancock, to lead this debate on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope). I can reassure hon. Members that he is doing extremely well, and he has been heartened by the many messages of support that he has received from Members across the House. Indeed, it was at his prompting that the subject of today’s debate was proposed; as the Chamber knows, he takes a significant and key interest in driving our skills agenda forward. Thanks to his initiative, we have the opportunity this afternoon to discuss the case for making Britain the home of world-class skills. In a very real sense, I believe that what we do now to shape our country’s skills will affect our prosperity for generations to come. At the end of last year, Lord Leitch published his independent report on the skill needs of the United Kingdom in 2020. The report set out the current state of skills in this country, the challenges that we face and what more we need to do to meet them. It was effective, detailed, accurate and robust. All around us, we see evidence of enormous and growing international competition, and the report focused on that phenomenon. The evidence shows that Britain took 100 years to double its gross domestic product after the industrial revolution and that America took 50 years, while China has taken only 10 years to do so. Today, the G7 countries account for half of the world’s GDP. By 2015, that is likely to fall to a third. Computer speed doubles every 18 months. The number of people with an iPod doubles every year and, staggeringly, the number of people with a blog doubles every few months. The progress of countries such as China and India during the past decade, too, has been staggering. With nearly double-digit growth rates, they are not only focused on becoming the manufacturing centres of the world but are concentrating just as much on high-end, highly skilled service industries. That is a further challenge for us. In fact, India’s service industry is growing at twice the pace of the rest of the economy. China and India are investing in their future. Each year, their more than 2,000 universities produce more graduates than all the countries of the European Union combined. If that challenge is treated as an opportunity rather than a threat, the future is not one of doom and gloom. If we grasp the nettle and do what is necessary to prosper in our changing world, a great prize awaits our country and its citizens—a prize of prosperity, of new and exciting careers for all, and of high-quality public services that only a thriving economy can produce. However, it is more than that. The prize of more and better skills will empower people, and enable them to find better jobs and earn more money. It will improve their quality of their life and that of their families. If we upskill Britain, we will improve our economic performance, and we will also improve social justice. I strongly believe that giving people the skills to enable them to succeed, to sustain themselves and to compete in the workplace is the best and most effective way of obtaining social justice and tackling poverty. It is right to prioritise the improvement of basic skills and employability, because that is how we will achieve the biggest impact on people’s lives. That is why the Government welcomed the Leitch review and the stretching skills ambitions that it set out for 2020. The key to success is the continuous investment of time and resources in the education and skills of all the British people, whatever their age, background or circumstances. In setting out that challenge, it is crucial to recognise that we are not starting from scratch. Much has already been achieved. We have reduced the number of adults in the work force who are without the equivalent of five good GCSEs by more than 1 million—that is a significant achievement—and more than 1.5 million people now have their first Skills for Life qualification. Investment in the further education sector has risen by 50 per cent. in real terms during the 10 years in which the Government have been in power. That is in stark contrast to the 14 per cent. real-terms cut in the five years to 1997. We have trebled the number of apprentices to 250,000, and we have 18 of Europe’s top 50 universities, including six of the top 10. However, we all know that it is not only about achieving challenging targets, important as that is. It is also about those who have fought their own personal battles, achieved personal successes and transformed their lives. Sandy Leitch recognised the improvements in our schools over the past decade. Since 1997, we have doubled spending per pupil in schools; we now have 36,000 more teachers and 150,000 more support staff. Every year, about 95,000 more 11-year-olds reach the standard expected in English and maths; and 85,000 more pupils obtain five good GCSEs—when English and maths are included, 62,000 more pupils make the grade. Welcome as that progress is, it is not good enough, and we must face up to some difficult truths. For a start, 70 per cent. of the 2020 workforce has already left school. Detailed analysis of statistics in the Leitch report reveals the challenge posed by changes in the economy and the jobs profile. The number of skilled jobs will increase over the coming 13 or 14 years from 9 million to 14 million, yet at the same time, the number of unskilled jobs will fall from 3.5 million to 600,000. Unless we can equip our people with the skills to cope effectively with that scale and pace of change, not only will they and their families lose out as a result of increased poverty and social isolation but we will become uncompetitive in the world economy. We inherited a legacy of under-achievement in schools that means that almost 50 per cent. of adults—some 17 million people—have difficulty with numbers. About 5 million people are functionally illiterate. Our staying-on rate beyond the age of 16 is below the average of member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The productivity of our workers falls below that of our main rivals in France, Germany and the United States—that is the challenge that we have to face. Sandy Leitch’s vision is of a Britain that by 2020 has world-class skills, and he sets out a road map to achieve that vision through specific, demanding targets, including the requirement that 95 per cent. of adults should be able to read and write properly and use numbers; that 90 per cent. of people should be qualified to at least level 2; that 1.9 million more people should have a level 3 qualification; that the number of people undertaking apprenticeships should double to 500,000 a year; and, crucially, that more than 40 per cent. of the population should be qualified to degree level or above, although I believe that we need to go significantly beyond that. We must aim high and act quickly if we are to move the country to the upper quartile of the OECD skills rankings. Our mission is to do all that we can to meet those targets and to transform skills in this country. I genuinely believe that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change this country’s attitude towards skills.