Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2022-02-21
Topic: Education
Andrew John Carter (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and to speak in this debate, because I spoke in the last such debate, and I was part of the Bill Committee, too. I will refer to new clause 1 and touch on new clauses 14 and 15, but I will start by echoing many of the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). This really is important legislation. Not only does it build on the commitment made in the Government’s 2019 manifesto to overhaul the training system in this country—a system that helps to support public services, existing businesses and the businesses of the future—but, most importantly, it prepares our future workforce with the skills that they will need to propel their careers, helping them to secure rewarding, valuable and well- paid jobs My recess week very much felt like preparation for this debate. I spent time at University Technical College Warrington meeting the students and their teachers. It is a fantastic skills-based school for young people aged 13 and above, including up to sixth form. I urge the Minister, wherever possible, to promote UTCs, because they provide something very special in many communities across the country After that, I joined the Minister for Higher and Further Education, the right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), on a visit to my sixth-form college, Priestley College, to meet some of the first students in the country who are taking T-levels and, just as importantly, to hear from some of the employers that are offering them placements. It was a fascinating insight that I will talk more about in a second On Friday, I then met some of the new work coaches at the jobcentre in Warrington. They are helping people who are looking for work to match their skills to the current vacancies and to help them to navigate, where appropriate, the opportunities that allow them to return to college or to update their qualifications so that they can engage with employers. One of the Bill’s fundamental aims is to ensure that people can access training and learn flexibly through their lives with information about what employers really want to see. I pay tribute to the team at the Jobcentre Plus office on Tanners Lane who are very focused on helping young people, in particular, to find a way into employment through apprenticeships—on the dual effort of people not only getting into work but earning while they are learning I mentioned that, on my visit to Priestley College, we heard from some of the young people studying T-levels for the first time. They are the first cohort to do so, with Warrington having been chosen as one of the pioneering locations for the new approach. The message that came back from students was that T-levels were a really positive decision for them. As well as hearing from students who were studying digital production, design and development, and education, we also heard from the managing director of a digital marketing company based in Stockton Heath called Alcimi. It was one of the first companies to offer a placement to the students. What came across clearly was that the business had genuinely benefited from having young students as part of its team for a short period. On top of that, the community benefited because the company had set the students a community-orientated project, and the students had really benefited, because they had been into the workplace and had seen how a digital business worked today and the sort of things that they could expect in future. There is a huge benefit to come from T-levels I would like to touch on new clauses 14 and 15, which the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) spoke to. I understand some of the points that he is making with the new clauses. I am very pleased to see the north-west getting support from Government to press ahead with the game-changing HyNet project—dealing with hydrogen carbon capture and storage—creating probably about 5,000 jobs. We will need to improve skills in that area and develop a future workforce. Filling those roles is a huge challenge, but the Government’s approach through local skills improvement plans is the route to solving that problem, rather than necessarily forcing this to relate to previous areas of employment, as new clauses 14 and 15 would I say to the Minister, and I raised this in Committee, that areas such as Warrington, which sit mid-way between two very large mayoralties—Greater Manchester and Merseyside—have people who grow up and study in one area and will then want to work in the other. It is important to make sure that employers in the wider skills area—perhaps in the mayoralties—that are looking to recruit from somewhere such as Warrington take account of the needs of those areas, too Finally, I will briefly mention new clause 1. The Chair of the Education Committee has come to visit Thorn Cross Prison, where a tremendous amount of work is going into retraining prisoners as they come to the end of their time inside. Many of the prisoners there are very keen to engage in their future development with apprenticeships, so I am keen for the Minister to continue to look at that I very much welcome the Government’s approach. They are tailoring skills and the workforce to the local area, and it is being led by business. I look forward to supporting them this evening.