Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Post-16 Education — House of Commons, 2020-10-01
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and particularly for ensuring that I had early advance sight of it As the right hon. Gentleman said, on the Labour side of the House, we, too, passionately believe in the value of further and adult education for individuals, for their communities and for our shared prosperity. I do think that many of the announcements the Secretary of State has made are a step in the right direction. Indeed, I have no doubt that he does believe we need more investment in further education, so I can only imagine that he was appalled to discover which party has been in office for the past 10 years and which party has spent those years slashing funding for further education, cutting maintenance support for learners and building barriers to further study. Will the Secretary of State now admit to the House that it was a mistake to cut billions of pounds from further and adult education and that the advanced learner loan system, which has deterred so many adult learners from studying, has had a devastating impact on their life chances I turn to the specific proposals outlined by the Secretary of State and, first, the lifetime skills guarantee. I am glad that he has acknowledged, as Labour has long argued, that more people need access to further education and retraining, particularly given the challenges our economy now faces, but many learners who could benefit from these new funded courses will not be eligible. For those training beyond level 3, he appears to be offering only a flexible loan system, but his own Department’s research shows that the introduction of loans caused participation in adult education to plummet. Why is he repeating this failed approach? What about those who do not hold level 2 qualifications? What funding will be available for them to study for level 2, so they can then progress to level 3 and further? I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would agree that he cannot credibly say that he wants equality between further and higher education if only one route brings maintenance support, so will the learners who study for these new funded courses be eligible for that support Next, I turn to funding. Additional investment in further and adult education is obviously welcome, which is why we on the Labour Benches have spent years advocating it, while year after year the Conservative party cut it. The funding that the Secretary of State has announced today will not even reverse the damage, let alone mean increased investment. Funding is supposed to be available for every adult who is not qualified to A-level or equivalent. There are 9 million of those people in the country. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that every single adult not qualified to level 3 who wants to access this support will be able to do so? His £2.5 billion amounts to less than £280 for each of these learners. Does he really think that is sufficient for an adult learner to get the necessary skills and qualifications? He has stated that a full level 3 qualification would be made available for adults aged over 23 for courses that are shown to be valued by employers. How are the Government determining that? Will he commit to a date to publish these details? I think that he said that T-levels will be included. Will he confirm that What conversations has the right hon. Gentleman had with the devolved authorities and Metro mayors about these proposals? Will metropolitan combined authorities that have their adult education budget devolved be able to set the eligibility criteria for this spending, and is the £8 million for the boot camps genuinely new money? He talks about increasing apprenticeship opportunities, but since the Government introduced the apprenticeship levy, numbers have been consistently down, especially at lower levels. Can he provide more detail on the support available for small and medium-sized enterprises and non-levy payers? Finally, I want to emphasise the scale and urgency of what is needed. The Government rightly found billions of pounds for the job retention scheme, but when it comes to retraining, their ambitions do not stretch further than last year’s manifesto, as though the global pandemic has had no impact on the need for workers to get new skills and new jobs. Labour called for the Government to integrate training into the job support scheme to allow workers on reduced hours to improve their skills. Why have the Government failed to do that The Office for Budget Responsibility’s central projection is for unemployment to reach 12% before the end of the year. That is when the need for skills and retraining will be most acute, so why is this package available only from April next year? Will courses starting under the new guarantee begin in April or follow the usual academic calendar? Why has the procurement of the contract for the 30,000 traineeships announced in July not yet even begun Labour has spent years calling for investment in the skills of working people and those seeking work. They are, and always have been, the greatest asset in our economy. It is only by making the most of all their potential that we can truly recover from the effects of this terrible pandemic and achieve a lasting and shared prosperity. We now face a crisis of unemployment that could be the worst in my lifetime. It is vital that the Government support those at risk of losing their jobs and that they support them in finding new careers and opportunities. The Government must get this right, and they have one chance to do so. I implore Ministers to listen to our concerns. The task is urgent, and it is essential.