Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

It is good to make my first contribution on Report on this important Bill. New clauses 1 and 11 reflect the profound concerns that exist up and down the country—I will not go as far as to say that there is fear, but there is certainly profound concern, disappointment and uncertainty—about the Government's freeze on capital projects in further education. They also relate to fundamental principles enshrined in the Bill, the first of which is the ability of providers to deliver an entitlement to apprenticeships. You will understand, with your considered view about such matters, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that apprenticeships are critical to rebuilding the nation's skills. FE colleges play a crucial role in delivering apprenticeships, and their facilities and resources are central to that purpose. A fundamental part of any apprenticeship framework is the training provided off site, which frequently takes place at an FE college. The 361 FE colleges in England do an incredibly important job. It is perhaps appropriate at this point to pay tribute to them and to the people who work in them because they make such a big difference to so many lives. They educate and train more than 3 million young and older learners each year, including about 750,000 16 to 18-year-olds. That is more than school sixth forms, private schools and training providers. The new clauses are relevant to the transfer of responsibilities resulting from the division of the Learning and Skills Council into three new bodies: the Skills Funding Agency, the Young People's Learning Agency and the National Apprenticeship Service. Some people have described the Bill as a "bureaucratic muddle". The British Chambers of Commerce made that very remark during the witness sessions that we enjoyed before the Committee stage of the Bill. Others have described it as "opaque", "obtuse", "obscure" and a "missed opportunity". These new clauses attempt to go some way towards improving a very imperfect product. New clause 1 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to commission a report on the FE college buildings and facilities that are so vital to delivering the training necessary to build the skills that we need. New clause 11 would place a duty on the chief executive of Skills Funding to provide a report on the progress of applications by FE colleges for capital projects. The reasons for the new clauses have become all too clear recently as a result of the gross mismanagement of the FE capital programme. I do not entirely blame the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), for that. I still regard him as a young man of promise, although many in the House regard him as merely a young man of promises. As he knows, I have defended him, on the Floor of the House and elsewhere, against some of the assaults that have been made on him from all quarters, not least the FE sector itself when it found it was facing disappointment and disillusion resulting from the freeze on FE capital projects. After many months of uncertainty, the Government announced in March that they would be freezing the approval process for 144 college building projects. Seventy-nine of the frozen colleges had already received agreement in principle and were awaiting approval in detail, which is the final stage of the approval process. To be considered for approval in detail, the colleges would already have had to secure planning permission and put together a full project brief. That involves not only the college staff but many other agencies, including those involved in designing the buildings, putting together the necessary infrastructure plans and project-managing the process. Many others have been affected detrimentally by this cruel freeze. The colleges have therefore incurred considerable costs in order to reach that stage of development. The other 65 frozen colleges are waiting for approval in principle. Some have already assembled a project team and put money towards preparing their bid. In my area, Boston college is in just that situation. It provides an outstanding service to many young people and adults from my constituency. In the areas neighbouring my constituency on the south side, Peterborough regional college and Stamford college are also both affected by the freeze. The new clauses would go some way towards ensuring that such matters would be identified and dealt with at a much earlier stage than they have been thus far.