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Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley were added to these amendments and we did that with pleasure. In many senses, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, knows that we believe that the amendment is rather tame. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, explained that they would have liked to endorse the earlier Liberal Democrat amendment which proposed that there should be an entitlement to a level 3 education at any age—including after retirement—for all students if they had not received the benefit of it previously. These days, we often talk about the lack of aspiration of young people, and perhaps of the teachers of young people. Here there is a lack of aspiration by the Government. We know perfectly well, from the Leitch report, that we must look to mature students to fill the gap in our skills base, which the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, rightly pointed out. The gap at level 3 is glaring and has been for a long time. The Government are doing practically nothing to fill that gap. We have not got enough young people coming through the system at level 3 and level 4 and we must be prepared to help students achieve qualifications at this level. The minimum we can do is give those who aspire to a level 3 qualification the same rights as we give to those at level 4. Those at level 4 have the right to a loan to cover the cost of their tuition. Part-time students at level 3 do not have the same rights. Mature students at level 3, even if they are full time, do not have the same rights. There is a gross inequality here for those at level 3, many of whom lost out in the education system at an earlier point. That the Government do not have the inspiration or the aspiration to meet their needs is a very sad indictment. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, quoted previous Labour Party manifestos and their aspirations as to what should be achieved. The Government are letting down a whole group of the population. As for the foundation-tier levels, these seem to be minimal qualifications. It is very sad that the Conservative Party takes the line it is taking, and very mean indeed. Here we have people with no qualifications whatsoever. The Conservative Party knows very well the importance these days of accreditations or qualifications of some sort or another. Surely people have a right to aspire to the lowest level of qualification. We are giving everybody the right to take what we call the full-fat level 2 qualification. If people do not have the capability of doing the full-fat level 2, surely the minimum we can do is encourage them to acquire the level 1 foundation-tier qualifications that we are now providing. From these Benches we endorse these amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Dearing.