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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright). We have had a great education in this debate. We had the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) who demonstrated Smith’s law, according to which, it is fair to say, a speech expands in inverse proportion to the length of a Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley), who is now in his place, talked cobblers, as befits someone who represents that fine town in Northamptonshire. I would very much like to have supported the Bill, but I cannot, in common with my hon. Friends, because it lacks imagination and is, unfortunately, about structures—it is a missed opportunity. It is also about bureaucracy and fails to reflect the reality of further education in the real world. In common with others, I believe that Ministers have missed a trick in failing to wait for the final recommendations of Lord Leitch’s report on skills. They should have done so because it would have meant that we could have had a much more fully informed debate. I am pleased that my constituency has one of the finest further education colleges in the country: Peterborough regional college. It has 15,000 students, and the adult learning inspectorate of Ofsted has consistently rated it as an outstanding example of a further education college, especially in financial management, for which it has achieved a grade 1. The situation in Peterborough is a microcosm of that throughout the country. The Secretary of State has told us that by about 2020 the number of unskilled jobs will decrease from 3.5 million to 500,000. However, we have a skills crisis now. In 2001, youth unemployment in Peterborough was 8 per cent., but it is now 14.1 per cent. We have 760 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are not in employment, education or training. That figure dates from January 2006 and I believe that the new figures will be published next month. Peterborough faces the problem that because it is a regional centre for horticulture, agriculture and food processing and packaging, we have been a magnet since May 2004 for unskilled migrant workers from the accession 8 countries in particular. That has clearly had an impact on youth unemployment and the low-skill, low-wage end of the employment sector, hence the increase in the number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance. At the same time, we are a sustainable growth area. Peterborough city council area is officially registered by the Office for National Statistics as one of the fastest growing economic areas in England. The Government must examine seriously our growing problem of NEETs—people not engaged in employment, education or training—because we must not entrench an underclass of people who feel that they have no way of getting on the ladder to a better life through jobs, skills or courses. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough movingly spoke about people who perhaps consider that it is not their place to be in education. There are working people who think that it is for someone else to have a good education and to improve their lives and those of their families. In some respects, the situation is grim. A third of the work force still have no basic school-leaving qualifications. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South said, one in six people have the literacy skills of an 11-year-old. Five million adults in our country have no academic qualifications at all, which is a serious problem. I am afraid that I am not as willing as others to agree with the rosy hue of how well things are going that has been suggested in the debate. As I said earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), the Government have form on grandiose promises and plans on skills, training and enterprise. The Chancellor—the no-spin Prime Minister elect—gave an undertaking that everyone on jobseeker’s allowance would have their skills assessed and would attend a mandatory skills course, yet that never happened. On Budget day in 2005, he gave the promise:"““I have set aside funds to ensure that by 2006 we meet our target that every school pupil has enterprise education.””—[Official Report, 16 March 2005; Vol. 432, c. 263.]" The Minister for Schools confirmed on 6 November 2006 that that had not happened. The Bill is not all bad. We are inclined to support its aspects that will award more independence and autonomy to the FE sector, and we might well do so in Committee. Where it gives employers a greater role in driving a demand-led—not a supply-led, top-down—skills agenda, we will support it. However, I fear that the Bill overemphasises and focuses too much on structures and controls. As my hon. Friends have said, with NEETs up by 29 per cent. since 2001 to 1.24 million, that is a significant problem. We should focus instead on practical solutions. The Bill represents the fourth reorganisation in five years, as has been pointed out. I declare an interest, as I was an Investors in People manager in a previous life and I worked closely with small and medium-sized enterprises. The contractual arrangements made between a learning and skills council, Business Link, employers and trainees was tortuous at local level. I can assure the House that it would be punishing in the extreme at regional level. We still have 17 bodies overseeing the FE sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) said, 70 per cent. of the work force in 2020 have already finished their statutory education. He makes a pertinent point about adult education. A year or so ago, many of us had constituents writing to us about cuts in adult education and the hike in fees which priced many people out of adult education. Whether it was basket weaving, painting or foreign languages, it may not be important within the great global skills agenda, but it was very important to those individuals. The Minister listened to us and I commend him for it. He called a meeting and spoke to hon. Members individually to try to alleviate their concerns. We should not lose sight of the fact that older people have a right to education as well. We need constantly to consider training and up-skilling during work. As an Investors in People manager, I was well aware that for the best employers, the No. 1 issue was not necessarily the bottom line, profit or machinery. It was the power of their people to deliver brilliant results. We should never forget that. It is the reason why we are a successful economy. I lived through the last reorganisation of the training and enterprise council in south-west London. I worked for AZTEC. In that reorganisation, unfortunately, the worst TECs were the ones that were considered the templates. The Government looked at them, assessed them as poor—in that case, I believe, it was the south Thames TEC—assumed that all TECs were like that, closed them all and converted them into learning and skills councils. The idea that 10 regional learning and skills councils will save money is naive and ridiculous, not to put too fine a point on it. What about redundancy payments? What about office costs, badges, name plaques, job reconfiguration, and consultants, who are ever-present? We know that the current spend on administration alone in LSCs is £1.8 billion. I remain to be convinced that any significant funding will be released as a result of the Government’s regional agenda. It is a recipe for bureaucracy, a lack of accountability and obfuscation, which will impact on businesses and their work forces as they see a disconnect between the local employment market and its priorities, and the regional priorities, which are currently articulated by the regional development agencies. As I pointed out to the Secretary of State, what is a priority in Hull is entirely different from that which is a priority in Barnsley, Dewsbury, Skipton or York, and that is just in one region. Local is best. Ministers seem confused about whether to regulate or deregulate in the Bill. They seem unwilling, as my hon. Friends observed, to trust the management of FE colleges. In respect of clauses 13 to 18, I do not believe that there will be true accountability to the taxpayer, student or employee in respect of substituting the Learning and Skills Council for the Secretary of State. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough made a fluent and eloquent speech, but she was unable to square the circle when directly challenged on that point and about dissolving, incorporating and merging colleges and removing college principals and senior staff. We must also focus on improving and strengthening local economies and have regard to local authorities. Ultimately, learning and skills councils do not have the same level of accountability as the Minister on the Treasury Bench; they are unelected, faceless and unaccountable. The Bill fails to mention the 148 local area partnerships, which I believe need a statutory footing. There is no requirement in exercising powers under clauses 14 to 16 to consult local authorities about the opening, merging or closing of colleges. I do not think that that is acceptable. Other hon. Members have spoken about the ramifications of clause 17. I believe that the proposal is ill thought out, hasty and confusing. Despite the evidence drawn to our attention by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson), the provision fails to recognise the success or otherwise of foundation degrees awarded by FE colleges. It has the potential to undermine the powerful and pervasive influence of the UK brand in further and higher education, which has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough said, it removes the focus from the raison d’être of further education and what employers want—vocational training at levels 1, 2 and 3, rather than at level 4 and upwards. Finally, the sector skills councils sadly have less influence than they need to have to exert leverage and use enlightened self-interest for the benefit of the work force for the long term. Sector skills agreements need to be placed on a statutory basis. The Government could have been so much more ambitious in the proposals. They could have looked at local arrangements to give apprenticeships in housing associations, local authorities and NHS trusts. They could have brought best practice from all those areas into the Bill and assisted that process. The Bill needed to focus on light-touch regulation, innovation, local expertise and accountability, a demand-led strategy and a serious recognition that economic exclusion resulting from the current skills crisis is getting worse, not better. Instead, it focuses on structures and command and control. That is why I shall support the amendment in the name of Her Majesty’s Opposition.