Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to contribute to the Second Reading of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. The Bill’s title is certainly a mouthful but I can assure you that I will be brief. I shall be focusing on the aspects relating to higher education, and I declare my interest as chief executive of Universities UK. Perhaps I may also say how much I share the appreciation of Lord Dearing and his contribution to FE and skills, which was so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I suspect that the Bill will conjure up for many Members of the House nostalgic visions of craftsmen and artisans bending over wool, wood, glass or leather and learning their trade over many years. While that may still be true in some cases, it does not accurately reflect apprenticeships and apprentices in the 21st century. Apprentices can now be found in a far broader range of industries, ranging from leisure and fitness to health and social care, as well as to more traditional engineering or manufacturing industries. Many apprentices will not have found a traditional academic education conducive to learning, nor found a suitable outlet for their practical talents until they joined an apprenticeship scheme. I endorse all the points that my noble friend Lady Blackstone made on this. Once an apprentice joins a scheme, the world could indeed become their oyster, which is why it is really important to get progression routes right. The Government are rightly committed to increasing the number of apprentices by 2013 and to offering apprenticeship places to all those who are qualified to take them up. Given the ever-increasing levels of skill required by apprentices, it is perhaps not surprising that many of them wish to enter higher education at a later date. Apprenticeships can be an effective way of widening participation in higher education, and with the acknowledged demographic downturn, apprenticeships could become crucial to HE participation levels. On the face of it, the current Bill does not set out a progression path for apprentices who wish to enter higher education. I appreciate, of course, that there are some practical difficulties with this, since apprenticeships are not strictly qualifications but frameworks. In World-class Apprenticeships, a publication which the Minister knows well, the Government gave a commitment for an apprenticeship framework that could use a UCAS tariff rating. This is necessary to increase progression from apprenticeships to HE. It is also important since many apprentices on entry will not have traditional academic qualifications, either because they have vocational qualifications or perhaps because they are older learners. Many of the apprentices will not have moved directly from their apprenticeship to higher education and will be studying part-time. So, from the institutional point of view, it will be key to ensure that the apprenticeship frameworks fit smoothly with higher education. However, I am reassured by the fact that the two education departments, DCSF and DIUS, started a review on the expansion of apprenticeships in January this year. Following on from the review, I wonder whether the Minister could inform the House whether articulation to higher education from apprenticeships will be included in the Bill in Committee. I turn to two other points on the Bill. First, I welcome the fact that the Bill includes a provision for increasing the amount of information, advice and guidance about vocational educational opportunities. It is good that the Government recognise that it is essential for our young people to receive the most appropriate information for them to make the best decisions about their future. Secondly, I am less sanguine—indeed, I am a little anxious—about the adoption of foundation-degree awarding powers for further education colleges in Wales. As the Minister will be aware, I raised the issue of quality control for these measures when they were brought before the House in relation to England. I made the point then that universities are extremely well placed to offer such degrees, since they can provide the quality assurance necessary to deliver a high-level qualification, as well as the articulation arrangements to which I referred earlier, so that the students can undertake a full honours degree at a later stage with the same institution. I recognise that foundation-degree awarding powers are going ahead for colleges in Wales, but can the Minister assure the House that the quality arrangements for colleges will be as rigorous as those applied to universities? Of course, all the positive work of upskilling and reskilling that universities do comes at a price. I hope the House will bear with me when I enter a perhaps predictable caveat. Public funding is key to keeping our institutions fit for purpose and world-class. It underpins all the other sources of income that institutions can raise for themselves. While I appreciate that budgets across Whitehall are much tighter than ever before, I stress to the Minister that without well-funded institutions we will not be able to achieve much of what needs to be done to pull us out of the downturn and prepare for the upturn in the economy, as well as to get the best out of our people. The sector has not yet had any guarantee that the vital unit of funding for teaching will be maintained. Cuts in the HE budget at this stage might provide short-term gains for the Government overall, but in my view they would certainly store up long-term pain. So, finally, I urge the Minister to offer her support for the maintenance of public investment in higher education at the necessary level.