argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative, Centre-right): We are doing much of what the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) asks for, including in the local skills plans, where net zero will very much be part of the planning and development process. I will make some headway, per your instructions, Madam Deputy Speaker, because there is a lot to get through tonight I also want to ensure that all students from the first two cohorts are not unfairly disadvantaged by the ongoing challenges that covid presents for T-level delivery. We have therefore recently announced a small number of temporary flexibilities on how industry placements can be delivered for those groups, including allowing some virtual working We are working to improve technical education at all levels, including level 2, which has been neglected for far too long. Getting level 2 and below right is key to ensuring that students have clear lines of sight to level 3 apprenticeships and traineeships, and, for some, directly into employment. We will consult on proposals for reform later this year, but we will work at speed It is in the interests of learners that we take a fresh look at the system and make it easier to navigate, with better outcomes for learners, employers and our economy. When I was apprenticeship tsar, I saw how clearly people in other countries understood their system and how that made a world of difference. Everyone understood it: the student, their family and their employer Since the Bill’s introduction in May, it has been subject to thorough and significant scrutiny in the other place. I express my thanks to all those who contributed, but especially to the Minister for the School System, who took on this Bill just before Report and did so brilliantly. My noble Friend brought forward some Government amendments on Report, including clauses on essay mills and an amendment to allow 16-to-19 colleges to become academies with a religious designation —something I know my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) will be very happy about. Important and sensitive issues were raised in the other place, and I can be clear that we are listening and taking careful consideration of the proposals made there. Not all changes are right for legislation, but I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of many of the proposals It is a privilege to be able to take this Bill through the House. I know there are many exciting and thought-provoking debates ahead of us, but, most importantly, we must remember why we are doing this: to deliver high-quality qualifications, designed with employers, to give students the skills they need. With the support of hon. Members on both sides of this House, the Bill will signify a major milestone in our plan for jobs and our economic recovery. The Bill will set us up for the future we want and, crucially, the future we need. I commend it to the House.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady might be aware that T-levels are already up and running, so she has the opportunity to see the depth and breadth of the T-level curriculum. Perhaps she could take the opportunity to see at first hand the benefits it will bring to her constituents.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): We talk about levelling up, and there is surely no better way to level up throughout the country than through investment in our human infrastructure—in the people across communities in the north, south, east and west—and that is what this Bill is all about doing and delivering on. At the heart of that has to be an understanding that employers play a critical role. This is not an issue that we have been debating for just the past five or 10 years; indeed, the Labour party, the Conservative party and the Liberal party have discussed it for the past 100 years. We have recognised that there are skill gaps in our country that we have needed to address and that other countries have had a competitive advantage in the way they have dealt with skills and made sure that their workforce have been better able to respond than ours have One key thing is the need to ensure that all the qualifications that are undertaken, whether at colleges or universities, are based on employer-led standards. There should be no shame in saying that what not only our young people but people of all ages learn will equip them with the skills needed for them to walk into work. That is our duty, it is what we want to give to everyone in our country and it is why the Bill is so incredibly important If we look at Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and so many other countries around the globe, we see that one area in which they are so much stronger than we are in this country is qualifications above A-level and below degree level—the higher technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5. If we do not plug that gap, we will continually be out-competed by other nations. Some 10% of our workforce between the ages of 18 and 65 have a level 4 or 5 qualification, compared with 20% in Germany and 34% in Canada. We need to address that, which is why the lifelong loan entitlement is so critical. But as well as bringing that forward, we need to get it right.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much join the hon. Gentleman in commending the Northern Regional College for its work. We see such work right throughout the United Kingdom, but the Bill will give us the opportunity to really power that work forward in colleges and, hopefully, universities right across England. That is going to be key. We have to look at how we start to close the competitive gap with other countries. We need to make sure not only that all our qualifications have employer-led standards but that we drive people up the skills ladder as we go. We have the opportunity to do that I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister sums up, he will touch a little on the LLE, which is really important, and that he can reassure me from the Dispatch Box this evening on this point about those who make use of it. One key element of the LLE is the ability to take qualifications, whether a full degree or a level 5 or 4 qualification, in a much more modular way. In the interests of students, it would be useful if the Minister could spell out from the Dispatch Box that students who take a full level 6 qualification, which is done in a modular way, would not be paying any more than £9,250, which is what someone who is taking a classic and standard degree qualification pays. That would greatly reassure many people, and I hope that the Minister is able to do that from the Dispatch Box this evening This is not about pitching colleges and universities against one another. An interesting point was made on this by a number of Lords in the other place: for us to be able to deliver on the Government’s aspirations for more level 4 and level 5 qualifications, universities need to play their part. Indeed, they have an incredibly important role to play in that delivery. Putting this skills Bill into statute, making sure that we actually put employers at the heart of decision-making and that they have a clear say would be truly transformative.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Siobhan Kathleen Baillie (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend for his time as Secretary of State and for listening to me pecking his head for years about further education. Was he truly inspired by the colleges and students that he met around the country, since his work was a lot of what got us to where we are today?
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Gavin Alexander Williamson (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend and I went to the same college, and we were both very much inspired by that Across the country, so many colleges are doing an amazing job, but what we have been seeing over the past year and more is investment flowing in that direction. None the less, let us not underestimate how important it is that employers are involved in this. They need to have a say and an influence, and they need to be able to design the qualifications. If we look at T-levels, we can see that they have been designed hand in glove with employers to make sure that when those youngsters leave college or school, they can step into the world of work and succeed. That is the hallmark of a great qualification, and that is what we should be proud of.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Ben Everitt (Conservative, Centre-right): I suspect that we may have been listening to a different opening statement from the Secretary of State, because I quite clearly heard his commitment that BTECs will remain where they are high quality and where there is a need for them. Does she remember that being a part of what he said?
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me start by thanking the Secretary of State for what I thought was a rather conciliatory speech. Hopefully, it will set the tone for this evening’s debate on a Bill that has already gone through the other place. We have seen a number of amendments tabled, not least the one on essay mills—I am very grateful to the Government for adding it to the Bill. That was the result of a cross-party effort, involving not just myself, but Lord Storey who has led the charge in the other place, I think, for the past five years. I hope that, in this place, we can try to build some cross-party consensus in order to improve the Bill, as the Lords have done In that spirit of cross-party consensus, I would like to reflect on the words of the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who set out very clearly the challenge with the lifetime skills guarantee. At present, it is not a guarantee for all those who need lifetime skills. As the Secretary of State clearly set out in his speech, 80% of the adult population in 2030 are already in work. If we wish to grip the challenges that climate change presents and grip the challenges of the systems-based approach that will lead to net zero across all parts of this country, we will need new forms of skills, reskilling and upskilling in green technologies, in retrofitting boilers and in all those things that, at the moment, we struggle to be able to do. We will need those reskilling and retraining opportunities. Those will come only if we take this moment to expand the lifetime skills guarantee and, importantly, as the Secretary of State said, the lifetime loan entitlement, because nothing flows without the finance. We need to ensure that that is available to those who have a level 3 qualification or above. We must look to abolish the so-called equivalent, or lower, qualification rule I want to declare my interest as having established a new Lifelong Education Commission with ResPublica. I am not paid for doing it, but I want to make sure that it is on the record that I have this interest in running the commission. The commission has published its first report, which looks in particular at what is needed when it comes to the frameworks. It is very easy to announce the lifetime skills guarantee—it sounds great. It is very easy to talk about a lifelong loan entitlement—it sounds marvellous—but unless we get the partnerships right in order to be able to deliver and implement this locally, they are just words. They are just a framework. I desperately want this to succeed I have been in this place for 11 years and, if I am honest, one of the greatest failures of my Government has been the decline in adult and part-time learning due to a lack of funding. We now have an opportunity to learn a lot of lessons from what went wrong there.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me to my second point, which is about the need to take a truly place-based approach to these reforms, if they are to succeed. We cannot necessarily legislate, top-down, and expect the reforms somehow to be successful. We have to involve local communities, because they know what will work in their local ecosystems. Many points have been made today about the role of employers. I would also say that universities are missing from the local skills improvement plans. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), made a point about the involvement of universities; they should be written into the Bill as part of the local skills improvement partnerships I know that we have had a review of the form and function of local enterprise partnerships. It may be that the levelling up White Paper brings further light on their role. There is enormous variability in the actual skills base of local enterprise partnerships to understand what is needed when it comes to delivering local skills. If we are going to level up, we want to ensure that we level up the capacity and capability of local actors to deliver on the ground, so ensuring that we get the correct place-based approach is important. I do not mind which actors locally are involved in the partnerships. I just think that it should be up to local communities to help forge the approach Let us look at what is happening in the Health and Care Bill, for which I have sat on the Bill Committee. We have seen that local approach with integrated care boards and integrated care partnerships. The Government are trusting them to come up with their own membership; it is not prescriptive. We have to try to demonstrate the same level of trust in education at a local level as we are doing with health through that Bill.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Christopher James Skidmore (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not an amendment for this Bill so I am simply not going to respond to that point I will finish by reflecting on the wider tone in which we take this debate forward. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire, talked about the need for partnerships between universities and further education colleges, and about ensuring that we do not pitch one against the other. That is absolutely right. This is a tertiary education Bill that is meant to be uniting, not divisive The Education Secretary, in his opening remarks, talked about President Harry Truman’s comment that it does not matter who takes the credit, as long as something is delivered successfully. I would like to quote another US President, Abraham Lincoln, who said: "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." I think that that applies when we look at the role of universities and further education colleges. We need them to work together in a sustainable ecosystem. We cannot allow the Bill to divide and rule, or somehow to allow for FE colleges to be compared unfavourably or favourably against universities We need higher technical education to succeed. To do that, we need flexible pathways that will allow the individual learner to move between FE and higher education—and sometimes back again—across the country. We will only ensure that those flexibilities exist if we support every part of the education sector and every institution. It is the institutions and their strengths that will deliver success in this vital Bill.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Andrew John Stevenson (Conservative, Centre-right): As we all know, the future is all about a good education and having the right skills. If we are to have a prosperous and successful nation, we need our education and training systems to be first class and competitive. The same applies to individuals: if they are to thrive, they must be provided with the opportunities to do so. Education and skills can be a great leveller. A modern economy also demands a much higher degree of skilled workers than ever before. The jobs of the future will require people to be better trained and have the requisite skills, and we must also be aware that the skills and jobs of tomorrow may be very different from those of today We also know that rising living standards and greater wealth only come from a more productive economy. Improving our national productivity will require innovation, investment and a skilled workforce. In January, I will be hosting my eighth skills fair in Carlisle. It was first set up at the behest of local employers and training providers in the area and is supported by such businesses as McVitie’s, Nestlé, Pirelli and Center Parcs. The key point is that they wanted a skills fair, not a jobs fair; those and other businesses recognise that it is skills that matter. I therefore fully support the direction in which the Government want to go and the improvements they want to see I appreciate that the Bill covers a number of policy and administrative areas, but I want to pick up on just two points. First, it is absolutely right that all pupils and students are made aware of all the training and educational opportunities and possibilities open to them: academic, technical and apprenticeships. We are fortunate to have a quality university sector and the university option is clearly important, but other training opportunities are of equal importance. Indeed it is arguable that technical training and apprenticeships are almost more vital if we are to improve the performance of our economy. That will be required if we are to become competitive in the global economy so it is absolutely right that all institutions have a duty to make sure that students have all options. Secondly, it is vital that employers, and indeed local leaders, are at the centre of the skills system—and it must be local employers. They know what skills are needed and the training and courses required, they know the local economy and they know where the jobs of tomorrow are likely to be created. A real partnership between business and training providers can be the blueprint for a better skilled and trained workforce that benefits the individual as well as our country.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Lia Nici-Townend (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an absolute joy and delight to be here to talk about this Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. It speaks to places such as Great Grimsby. To level up properly, we really need to support technical education. That is something we have needed to do for decades now. Despite the caricature by Opposition Members, I got a BTEC myself and I taught in further education for 22 years, but not all BTECs are equal; some are very high quality, and some are not such good quality. That is why we need to take a really good look at the whole provision I taught in further education when new Labour had its mantra of "education, education, education", and I can tell the House that that actually decimated technical education. HNCs and HNDs virtually died overnight, and towns such as Great Grimsby, which has fantastic further education provision—we have the Ofsted grade 1 Grimsby Institute and the Ofsted grade 2 Franklin Sixth Form College—were utterly gutted by what happened in education then. That proves that this is about not the amount of funding that we put in, but where we put it and where our priorities lie It is absolutely key that we put employers at the centre of this policy. That makes employers realise that they have the power, and they will work with our educators to make sure that we are getting the right kinds of qualifications. In Grimsby, our biggest employer is our seafood sector, but we have a dearth of qualifications in that sector. That is why it is fantastic that we are developing our apprenticeships provision, which is utterly needed However, I want to make sure that we include everybody in our local skills improvement plans. That includes all types of employer—our large employers, our small and medium-sized enterprises, our sole traders—as well as our educators. I was happy to see in the Bill that we have not specified the type of designated employers’ groups that should come together. As other Members have said, we have some weak groups and some strong groups, and we need to make sure that we are able to account for that. I am heartened that the Secretary of State will sign off the LSIPs, because that will make sure that we align them with the skills we need locally and not the skills that suit the providers, which is what has happened for the last few decades As a further education ambassador, I am delighted to work with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and I look forward to seeing the Bill go through the House.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2021-11-15
Topic: Education
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, warmly welcome the Bill, with the emphasis it places on lifelong learning. Although 50% of people go to university, all of us will be working for something like 40 to 50 years, so it is very important that people have the opportunity to acquire new skills during their lifetime. I therefore join voices from across the House in whole-heartedly welcoming the direction of travel in the Bill I particularly welcome the Bill’s emphasis on place and local economic links, with links to local employers and a greater emphasis on local governance. My local schools with sixth forms will also welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement this evening of the extension of funding for certain courses to 2025. One local high school has written to me to emphasise that its students value taking courses in sport, business, travel and tourism, sound engineering and IT. This is, therefore, a very positive Bill I want to use my time to raise a local case, which the Minister was kind enough to discuss with me recently, where the direction of travel is completely wrong: the case of Malvern Hills College. It is a wonderful college, which has been in the town of Malvern for nearly 100 years. About five years ago, it was acquired by Warwickshire College Group. Warwick, of course, is quite a long way from Malvern. The group, which has a lot of disparate sites, took the unfortunate decision to close the college. The college has been going for nearly 100 years and is very valued by the local community. The community has put in place a covenant on the site, which is that it should be used for educational purposes only I urge the Minister, in his response, to see whether he can use the powers in the Bill to examine that very unfortunate decision and push back on Warwickshire College Group’s plans to close an institution that for nearly 100 years has been enhancing the skills, the lifetime learning and the life chances of people in Malvern. There will be a demonstration to show support for the college, and 5,000 signatures have already been added to the petition.