Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Anthony Young (Labour, Centre-left): This is another area about which we have had a significant amount of dialogue with the Government during the interregnum between the Committee and Report stages, and we have had some correspondence from the Minister. At first sight the Bill seems to be a modest little measure, until you look into its implications. If there is one area with significant implications, it is around the transition to a new system of technical qualifications. One of the documents that we have received from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, says: "The current system involves around 3,500 vocational qualifications, which can be hard to distinguish between—our intention is to streamline these options. The current landscape is confusing; for parents, students, careers advisers and employers. That is exactly why we are trying to reform and simplify it" It goes on to say: "The Sainsbury Panel recommended that there should be a single exclusive licence for delivery of each new technical education qualification. The Institute will work with employers and other stakeholders to develop high-quality technical education qualifications, based on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers have identified as being a requirement for particular occupations" Again, that is a very ambitious objective. I agree that there is a bewildering number of technical qualifications out there. I would also agree that some of them are not of the highest standard, but that is not true of all those qualifications by any means. Some of them are well established and have a very good reputation, whether City & Guilds, HNC or HND. These have taken a long time to establish. We know—when I say "we" I mean the royal we—that is, the previous Labour Government know from when we tried to introduce diplomas that it was not exactly a primrose path to a new qualification. Once again, the law of unintended consequences applied: the intention might have been good, but the delivery was difficult When we asked what exactly would be the transition from the 3,500 to a number, depending on the 15 routes, that could possibly be just a single qualification, the response we had from the Bill team was that this is a work in progress. That is not intended to be a derogatory comment on my part because the Government are trying to achieve a complicated process. We have said to the Government to be careful—I was going to say be careful not to throw out some of these babies with the bathwater, but they are not exactly babies; these are very mature, adult qualifications that have been around for a long time and have a high reputation—about getting rid of those qualifications and to understand the difficulty of establishing new ones While we have been considering this legislation, a new description for the qualification has appeared: T-levels. I quite like it. I do not know who thought it up, but I thought that since we have A-levels, T-levels potentially sounded good. I and many others who have been looking at this problem are worried for a number of reasons. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and others will come in and expand on this. I do not know why this amendment has been taken as a separate group. The start of this, apart from all the other issues about intellectual property rights and other things that have been raised in the course of this debate, will be to get that transition process right. That will be a key part of establishing new technical qualifications. We do not want to be in a situation where suddenly we are introducing a huge level of doubt and uncertainty, where once again we are trying to create confidence in the apprenticeship brand and in technical education. I understand that this is a work in progress, but I make a plea to the Minister and his team to recognise first the size of the task, which I think they do, and secondly the sensitivity of what they are dealing with and the need to get it right to ensure that there is adequate consultation, not only with employers but with all the other stakeholders, including the current awarding bodies and educational providers such as FE colleges. That is the basis of the amendment. Once again, I look forward to the ministerial response. I beg to move.