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Education and Skills Bill

I welcome the aims of the Bill. We seemed almost immediately to reach consensus in welcoming the fact that if the Bill is passed every 18-year-old will receive education and/or training. They will have the skills for employment or to go into continuing or higher education; into full-time education for those who choose it, part-time education with an element of work or voluntary work—an important aspect of the Bill—or an apprenticeship. However, we need to be careful in our definition of ““apprenticeship”” to ensure that it includes a proper workplace component, so that apprentices learn the real, practical skills that will make them attractive to employers. The debate seemed quickly to focus on whether the measure should have an element of compulsion or whether it should simply be about the provision of opportunity. Debate in Committee will no doubt concentrate on those points. The Opposition are not in favour of compulsion, although we are in favour of the Bill's aims. We believe that what happens in school pre-16 is absolutely crucial in reducing truancy, disaffection, under-achievement and lack of aspiration and ambition. In addition to the quality of teaching in schools, pastoral care, especially through personal, health and social education, has an important role to play in preparing students for adult life. Students should have proper information and warnings about, for example, the pitfalls of substance and drug abuse and the dangers not just for their education but for their health, motivation and progress to adult life. Time and again, when young people are interviewed, I notice that their speech is almost unintelligible. Some of that is teenage affectation and style, but often they simply do not enunciate properly, especially in our part of the world where they speak ““estuary English””. They try to speak without using their tongue or any of the muscles in their mouth or jaw—without any movement at all; it is almost as though they are ventriloquists. I hope that PHSE can help young people to understand that if they want to find a job, or even be enrolled on an apprenticeship scheme, they need to be able to communicate with non-teenagers who do not speak their language. Being understood is an important part of communicating with adults.