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World Class Skills 2020

I have been a Member of the House 21 months or so, and this is the first time that I have taken part in a debate chaired by one of my colleagues, Mr. Hancock. So, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, although I am sure that you would rather be on your way back to Portsmouth. I am at this debate today because I am the Lib Dem shadow spokesman on further and higher education, but I am also a member of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). He always says that, when we have a discussion on skills, the public gallery is less full than it is on many other occasions and the press do not turn up. It is slightly disappointing that this afternoon’s exchange of views is taking place between the Front-Bench spokespeople, rather than it being a fully-fledged discussion on this vital issue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on turning up, although he will have the shortest journey home. Given the snow, I suspect that the journey home has been high in people’s minds. I hope that ““Worst Great Western”” will not let me down when I get back to Paddington later this afternoon. The title of Lord Leitch’s report is ““Prosperity for all in the global economy—world class skills””. We face big challenges in this globalised world at the beginning of the 21st century. Let us consider the various league tables. Perhaps the most frightening thing is stated early in the report: we are at risk of being in a situation where we ““run to stand still””. It is not my job this afternoon to say that progress has not been made, because I recognise that this country’s educational provision is different from what it was in 1997. However, no matter how much progress we have made, we must remember that the rest of the world has changed too. Countries that used not to be our competitors now compete more than adequately. South Korea lay in ruins 50 years ago, and it still has a madman over the border, but it now tops the league in attainment at age 16 and staying-on rates, whereas our own country ranks 23rd in educational attainment at 16 and staying-on rates. There is some way to go before we are a world-class country in educational terms. The Minister mentioned the number of graduates being turned out every year in India and China. We have a huge task ahead if we are to increase the number of people participating in higher education and to provide the improvement in intermediate skills and school-level skills, on which much of the debate has focused. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) finished by mentioning the 14 to 19 diplomas. They featured highly in Education questions this morning. The Secretary of State said that he thought that the first five diplomas in the initial tranche of collaborations were on track to be delivered by 2008, and I hope that he is right. It is vital that the diplomas succeed and are seen to be a success at the start, otherwise there is a terrible danger that they will not be taken up when they become a fully-fledged national entitlement in 2013. There are early warning signs that things might not be quite as on track as the Secretary of State indicated this morning. My Select Committee colleagues and I visited Lewisham college earlier this week and heard concerns from the coal face. People who will be delivering the diplomas, if they are successful in the gateway, are worried about the content of some of the diplomas. Worries have also been expressed in evidence to the Select Committee. Important work still needs to be done to ensure that the diplomas are a success by the time that we come to their early implementation in 2008. I shall not reopen the debate about whether that is an implementation of the Tomlinson report—I suspect that we have been over that many times and doubtless it will be discussed again at some point, but now is not the time to do so. My other worry came when I heard the Minister for Schools tell the Select Committee that he expected the first collaborations to take part in the diplomas to build on what exists already. I worried that the diplomas will be delivered in the colleges, and in the schools that are collaborating with colleges, where a great deal of vocational education goes on already, and that vocational opportunities might not be widened to the whole family of schools. That is our worry about the Tomlinson report. We said that it was a missed opportunity to bring together GCSE, A-level, and vocational courses in one diploma, so that everyone takes the same named qualification, delivered in every state school and college in the country. There is a danger that we will continue the current divide where some people do vocational education and other children, depending on where they are in the country, struggle with the only academic offer that is available to them in their schools and do not have the opportunity to access the vocational training that the diploma should open up to them. None the less, we desperately want the diplomas to succeed. It has been said a couple of times by the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning and by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that 70 per cent. of the work force that will need to be in place by 2020 is already in place—the Leitch report is all about where we need to be in 2020. Some 70 per cent. of that work force has already completed its formal, compulsory education. We also know that demographic change will take place over the next decade. Fewer teenagers will be entering the labour market or entering further and higher education, so it is all the more important that we invest in the existing work force. Leitch says that that is a tripartite obligation on the employer, the employee and the Government, but I think that there must be a step change in the attitude of some employers. I was lucky that when I graduated I joined what was then one of the world’s largest consulting firms. It is now called PricewaterhouseCoopers and is the world’s largest consulting firm. The training that I received to get my professional qualification and the on-the-job training were second to none; the investment was huge. That situation was replicated in all the other large consulting firms, the legal firms and the other professional bodies that many of my friends joined. Even those who went into the large companies would have had a similar experience. One of my political colleagues in Bristol left school with only a handful of GCSEs, but she works for a large insurance company and it has invested in her and ensured that she is able to get financial planning qualifications. If someone is lucky enough to work for a large consulting firm or a large quoted company, the chances are that their employer will have a positive attitude to investment in human resources. We know that that is not always the case throughout the economy. Small and medium enterprises need to make a cultural shift if the step change in the skills of our work force is to take place. I see that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) has joined us. I believe that it was the principal of Blackpool college who told the Select Committee that somebody came to take up one of its courses, but when her employer was told that the fee would be £70, he shook his head and said no. He was not willing to invest even that paltry sum in somebody’s education.