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World Class Skills 2020

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are some good initiatives, but the issue is one for public policy as well. As I said, the explanation—to a degree, at least—is the educational attainment gap. I hope that these things are about to change, and I believe that they are beginning to change, but, historically, we have not carried through the attention that we gave up to the age of 16 to pupils with special educational needs or disabilities, whether in mainstream or specialist schools. That issue was touched on in our Select Committee report on special educational needs, albeit more lightly than any of us would have wished. I believe that many of us would have wished to look further into the matter. A key element is that what we do in post-16 education for people with disabilities will, inevitably, have an impact on our ability to employ them, and their ability to build on skills at a later date. I wish to discuss briefly a matter that is not unrelated to the issue of how we get economically inactive people—those who, in the words of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, do not fit—back into the work force, as well as upskilling and training further the existing work force. I also want to discuss what the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) referred to as soft skills. I have used that phrase on several occasions, but I have never been entirely happy with it. The danger with the expression ““soft skills”” is that it somehow gives the impression to people who perhaps are not familiar with some of the lexicon that the skills are less important, or less verifiable. Without trying to be politically correct about it, I use in my own speeches and comments the words ““enabling skills”” a bit more, because that is what we are actually talking about. The word ““enabling”” also brings on board the issue of progression, which I know is an important one for the Government, and rightly so. Last year, as part of adult learners week, I was asked to give a speech to NIACE. If I may, I would like to refer to some of the things that I said on that occasion about these issues. I said:"““If we are talking about getting adults—whether disaffected young people in their late 20s who have failed to get decent qualifications previously, people of all ages with learning disabilities who have fallen through the gap, or older people in their late 40s and early 50s, casualties of redundancy in disappearing services or manufacturing industries who have been ground down by either having no job or a very low-skills one for several years, to return to skilled work the sort of skills they will require—whether we call them ‘gateway’ or ‘enabling’ ones—are not linear or narrowing but clustered. They are ones that will put a premium on developing self-confidence and interpersonal skills—including timekeeping and being at least to some degree self-starters.””" Those are the skills that will enable the people who I am talking about to adjust more easily"““to rapid change in the workforce or their employment or give them the qualifications to cope, and where necessary move on.””" Another thing that we do not want to do is bring people into the work force with a great deal of training and support, whether through Department for Work and Pensions programmes or anything else, get them a job and then find, despite their willingness to progress, that they feel stuck. That, I think, is a damaging situation for them and for the country, and it is not helpful to the ethos of progression that the Government rightly promote. We need to think of it in those terms when we talk about enabling skills. I want to say something, too, about the absolute and central importance, in my view, of a regional approach to the sort of things that Leitch talked about. In his interim report in December 2005, Lord Leitch reminded us, and justly so, that although many of our regional cities had revived—he justly praised that revival, as I am sure that most of us do—the skills profile countrywide remains skewed. In the interim report, he quoted the figure that nearly four out of every 10 working adults in the north-east, Yorkshire and Humberside have skills below the level equivalent of five good GCSEs compared with only a quarter or so in the south-east. If one breaks down those statistics even further, even within relatively compact geographical regions, one can see significant discrepancies and differences in the acquisition of qualifications between large metropolitan cities and second-level—or second-tier—cities or towns with smaller populations. Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear me say that this is the point at which I will make reference to my constituency. Blackpool, rather like Preston, is a classic example of a second-level city or town that has been dependent on a particular industry for a long time and where the skills base, historically, has been low and relatively poor. I refer, obviously, to the leisure and tourism industries. The stay-on rate in school, further education or beyond has also traditionally been disappointing. We have to be careful that in our economic and regeneration policies we focus on the particular concerns in regions and in that second-level of towns or cities. The Learning and Skills Council needs to address that in its overall plans. The other thing about the skills requirements and skills challenge in Blackpool is that, like most seaside and coastal towns, although there are one or two large employers such as Blackpool pleasure beach and a few other major leisure industry employers, the vast majority of people who are involved in the tourism and leisure industry are, of course, involved via small and medium-sized enterprises and, in many cases, via what one might regard as microbusinesses. It is essential that as the Leitch programme is carried through, the interests and involvement of those small and medium-sized businesses, and of the microbusinesses in particular, are engaged. One of the things that I and other members of the Select Committee on Education and Skills sometimes hear is that the views and concerns of employers are not always necessarily, completely or comprehensively covered by the sector skills councils that cover the area, however good or active those councils are. In considering how we take through Leitch’s agenda for 2020, the Government must always be mindful that we cannot always rely entirely on an updated corporatist approach, if I can put it that way, to how sector skills councils deliver on some of the important things that Lord Leitch talks about in his report. The other day, at Lewisham college, we heard how although it is important that in order that qualifications are fit for purpose for 2020 and beyond the views of employers should be carefully and well represented, it is also important that when we bring on board the new qualifications—the new 14-to-19 diplomas, five of which are scheduled to be on the market by 2008—at every stage there should be a close involvement between further education colleges and the views of individual employers, as well as the sector skills council. There is a difficult balance to be struck. In the Select Committee, we have heard the emphases on that tension already. There is a difficult balance to be struck between forging ahead ambitiously with the 14-to-19 diplomas in order to deliver precisely the sort of thing that Lord Leitch talks about in the report, where he says how essential those new diplomas are, and ensuring that they are properly embedded in the acceptance of the learner, the employer and the colleges that have to deliver them before we move on and discard some of the types of qualification that were available. If we do not strike that balance, there is a danger that we will fall between the two stools. In conclusion, we have been set a great and challenging agenda by Lord Leitch. I hope that some of the issues that I have raised today will mean, first, that we will always remember that the devil is in the detail and, secondly, that when those things are followed through—this applies to Government, to Government agencies such as the LSC, and to officials as well as to the sectoral agencies—we will constantly monitor what is working and will not be afraid to revise targets or emphases as we see the results of what is happening.