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Building a High-Skilled Economy

I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is the first time I have had the privilege of speaking in the Chamber while you have been in the Chair. May I also congratulate all those new Members who have made their maiden speeches today? I have not heard them all, but I have certainly heard most of them, and on the basis of what I have heard those Members are going to make a significant and worthwhile contribution to the Chamber while they are here. This debate, above all, is supremely relevant to my constituents. West Bromwich West is a traditional manufacturing constituency that suffered enormously in the 1980s from the policies of the then Government. Unemployment rocketed, which resulted in the creation of a generation of people who saw no prospect of employment, and a culture of low aspiration, low expectation and low skills and training. Members said earlier that we should not live in the past. That is quite correct. On the other hand, it is important that we look to the past and learn from the mistakes that were made, so that we do not replicate them. The mass unemployment in my constituency in the 1980s and the substantial reduction in the manufacturing sector resulted in a skills gap that, despite all the efforts of the Labour Government, has not fully been closed. Even as the economy and employment opportunities improved, there was still higher than average unemployment in my constituency, and employers complained to me that the skills they needed still did not exist locally. The reason was that in the 1980s, as the economy went into recession on two occasions and manufacturing collapsed, no efforts were made to pick up those who had been made unemployed and retrain them with the skills to fill the opportunities that would subsequently be created as our economy grew out of recession. The result of that was a drag on the local economy throughout the past 10 years of the previous Government, as they implemented policies that led to economic growth. What we must not see is the recent recession and the fragile growth that we have seen since then operating in the same way. It is fair to say that the previous Government recognised that a recession provides an opportunity for those who cannot immediately get jobs or who have been thrown out of their jobs, given the right support, to get the appropriate training and skills that they have hitherto not had the opportunity to get, so as to equip them for the new jobs that will be created in the future. That I know was what was behind the previous Government's approach to dealing with the problem over the past two or three years. The current situation presents an enormous problem in that respect, although I would not pretend that it had arisen entirely as a result of the cuts that have been announced over the past two or three weeks. There were potential problems beforehand, particularly with the number of young people wanting to go into higher education and the places not being available. However, it was the previous Government who made provision for 20,000 new places and who put a particular emphasis on providing the budget for the key STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—which are vital if we are to equip manufacturing to take us out of recession. I have not heard any guarantees that this Government are going to ring-fence the funding for STEM subjects in universities to ensure that this area, which is so vital to our future, is sustained. This is particularly important because a number of universities are already reporting that, because the provision of those courses requires higher capital investment, they could be the first on the list to be removed. We could therefore be undermining our scientific, engineering and mathematical potential in vital sectors, at a time when it is so necessary to get us out of recession. I also want to talk about a subject that I have not heard mentioned so far—namely, the education maintenance allowance. In constituencies such as mine, where people have low incomes and, historically, low aspirations, the provision of that allowance is essential to give young people the confidence to go into further education and, eventually, higher education. With the increase in competition that is likely to arise for the lower number of university places—it might not be lower in absolute terms, but it could be lower, relative to the demand for them—there is a danger that young people from low income and low aspiration backgrounds could be crowded out of the competition for the scarce number of places. That will make the EMA strategically even more important than it has been in the past, if we are to ensure that university opportunities are open to people from all backgrounds and incomes.