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Education and Skills Bill

I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I believe that there are ways other than compulsion by which we can ensure that colleges are oriented towards the needs of people with disabilities and that employers take account of the many ways in which individuals with disabilities can contribute to the work force. Members of my own family who are living with disabilities have, partly due to the effects of good educational backgrounds and the influence of sensitive employers, succeeded in securing employment. I believe that it is important to have an unrelenting drive to value what people living with disabilities can offer us, not just in economic terms, but in others. I take the point that many who believe in this Bill also believe that compulsion is the only way to secure that desirable end. At the moment, however, I am not convinced that the method of compulsion in the Bill is the most desirable way of achieving the ends of which the hon. Gentleman has quite rightly reminded us. I have mentioned history and geography in respect of increasing participation in education, but it is also important, in deference to the Secretary of State, to mention economics. As well as personal conviction and social justice, economic imperatives also drive the case for greater participation in education. The Leitch report, to which the Secretary of State referred, is the latest in a long line of analyses of Britain's educational underperformance. With specific reference to vocational skills, we have had reports on educational underperformance going right back to 1868. Lord Leitch is very specific about the number of jobs that he believes will be available to those without skills in 2020—just 600,000, he argues. I myself am wary about predicting with such uncanny precision the specific demand for particular types of labour in an open marketplace in 14 years' time. Some economists argue that the labour market of the future will be much more fluid than Lord Leitch envisages. However, I very much agree with the broader point that the more highly skilled and the better educated our work force—all other things being equal, as I was taught to say in my higher economics—the higher our overall productivity will be.