On 15th June 2021, the House of Lords debated the Skills and Post 16 Education Bill in its second reading. The Bishop of Leeds spoke in the debate, highlighting several areas of the bill for attention, including incentives for workers influenced by the pandemic:
The Lord Bishop of Leeds: My Lords, I strongly endorse the previous speech, particularly as it notes the crazy distinction between vocational and academic study. On these Benches, we welcome the commitment from the Government to the further education and skills sector as set out in the Bill. It is particularly pleasing to see that the Bill builds on the practical reforms outlined in the Skills for Jobs White Paper. In this context, I also strongly commend to the House the Church of England’s new vision for further education report, published at the end of April, which also recognises the key role that FE plays in driving individual, community and societal transformation.
I wish to make three points. First, how might learners be enabled or incentivised to upskill or reskill, particularly those such as the long-term furloughed or people heavily reliant on welfare payments, who have been particularly impacted by the pandemic? The Bill outlines structures and organisations required for delivering training but does not suggest how such people actually get to the training in the first place. Clearly, the welcome commitment to a reintroduction of maintenance grants is a significant part of this, yet the need, already referred to by other speakers, to cover basic living expenses while studying is an immediate and powerful potential barrier to learning. This could be an opportune time to reconsider the 16 hours-a-week work rule for those in receipt of universal credit, with proper safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the system. Great training is pointless if the people who need it are not incentivised to access it.
Secondly, how do the Government plan to ensure that local SME voices are heard and not overpowered by larger employers, which typically find it easier to meet expectations from Government? Over 80% of the UK economy is driven by the service sector, which is dominated by small and medium-sized employers. SMEs play a central role in levelling up, as they are typically more likely to employ those from disadvantaged groups with lower employment chances. This lies behind Wakefield Council’s launch, in March, of its new strategy to become a “Learning City and District”, one of the four pillars of which is to:
“Provide an inclusive jobs market for residents to find and sustain well paid employment, by ensuring access to learning is available for all levels and to all ages with increased participation from hard to reach/disadvantaged communities.”
An employer-centred focus is crucial to the success of the skills reforms. However, equally crucial is the development of longer-term thinking about the future skills needs of society. This means that meeting present perceived needs locally must be balanced by an appreciation of longer-term changes in future skills demand, particularly if we are to join up local and national provision.
Thirdly, colleges play a vital role in providing for students with specific learning difficulties and disabilities. According to the Association of Colleges, such students make up 17% of the overall intake, a figure which rises to 23% of 16 to 18 year-old learners. In 2019-20, local authorities placed over 64,000 students with education, health and care plans in colleges—90% of them in general FE colleges and the rest in specialist institutions. The funding regime does not provide support for students in FE who do not have EHCPs to anything like the degree required, yet the Bill makes no specific reference to such students, although we welcome the promised Green Paper due in the summer. It would be helpful if the Minister could consider how the appropriate degree of priority could be given to this diverse cohort of learners in policy and funding terms, and how that might best be reflected in the Bill, as it passes through the House.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab): In opening the debate, the Minister referenced the Augar review’s call for parity of esteem, and many noble Lords followed her lead. If one theme has dominated the debate, it is the need to end the division between academic and technical routes, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, rightly said, is a false one. He illustrated that by reminding us that academic courses are offered at FE colleges, while technical subjects can be studied in universities. The divide was characterised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds as a “crazy distinction”. While my noble friend Lord Puttnam stressed that this is not a zero-sum game, my noble friend Lord Liddle called for “collaboration, not polarisation”. I echo these sentiments and very much hope that the Bill will at least begin to bridge that divide.
Baroness Berridge (Con): On the measures in the Bill on local skills improvement plans, I agree with my noble friend Lord Taylor on the importance of localism. The local skills improvement plans are putting employers at the heart of the skills system in a way similar to the apprenticeship situation and the T-levels that we have designed. Many noble Lords talked about that tension: someone has to be in the driving seat here. There cannot be a cast of thousands but there needs to be appropriate consultation. So the Government have decided that these will be employer representative groups. To clarify to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, we did not define them as businesses but as employers. That might be the big local hospital, or a university might be an employer for that purpose rather than just being the provider. They are well placed to have that convening role, including of course the SMEs, in their local area. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds highlighted, their involvement is crucial.
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I am very grateful again to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds for highlighting the importance of special educational needs and of using the assistive technology to support FE learners with SEND. This is an important part of the Bill. Obviously, the figures for those with SEND show that a higher proportion of them go into technical or vocational qualifications or into FE institutions.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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