Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I, too, greatly regret the absence of Lord Dearing at this evening’s proceedings. He was particularly concerned and enthusiastic about improving the prospects of children in public care. We spoke about this often, and I appreciated his encouragement to me in this area. I begin by taking the opportunity to pay tribute to the Government for the priority that they have given to education over the past 10 years and for their achievement in turning around the status of teaching. It is uplifting for me to talk to friends and hear them say that their sons are thinking about a job perhaps in the City or as a teacher. It really is something that the Government can be proud of having achieved in the past 10 years. It was heartening to be reminded by the Minister of the move from 65,000 available apprenticeships some years ago to 250,000 currently and to the highest level of completions. That is particularly pleasing for me because I recall speaking to a young man in a hostel run by Centrepoint. He had recently acquired an apprenticeship and was in a crafts workshop. He was simply delighted at this opportunity. I also recall being present at awards ceremonies run by National Grid for young trainees who had been in custody and were selected for an opportunity to gain an NVQ level 3. If they succeeded they were guaranteed a job at National Grid or one of its partners. These young men were often at the awards ceremonies with their partners and young children. Thanks to this training opportunity and a job, these young children had the prospect of a father who would stick around and a family income, as well as a positive role model, rather than a father involved in crime or anti-social behaviour. These opportunities for young people make a difference from generation to generation. I welcome the Government’s successes in this area. I welcome in the Bill the opportunity for employees to ask for training and the possibility of a less vigorous or more proportionate inspection of schools, as well as relieving them of some of the bureaucracy with which they have to deal. However, I share the concerns expressed from around the House, including from the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, and the noble Lord, Lord Bates, about the risk of increasing bureaucracy. During the past 10 years, I have been troubled that there has been such a lot of legislation concerning education and children. The Government have done wonderfully in terms of teaching, but if the same effort had been put into social work and other areas where people work with children and young people, we would be further down the road of improving outcomes for children than we are now. In 2004, during the passage of the Children Bill, my noble friend Lord Laming reflected on the fact that if only we had effectively implemented the Children Act 1989 this would not be necessary. The workforce delivers the outcomes we want for children. I worry that a Bill of this extent and magnitude, which involves a fair amount of structural change, might be distracting rather than helpful, but I was encouraged by what the Minister said in her opening speech. It will certainly give us a good opportunity to look at what still needs to be done. Last year’s Children’s Plan recognised that the primary means of improving outcomes for children and young people is the workforce. We need to avoid being distracted from keeping that strong and single focus on making that sort of work attractive, keeping people in that sort of work and making a strong framework to support it. As regards the abolition of the QCA, part of the plan is to improve confidence in the exam system. Will the Minister consider other means to improve that confidence? For example, building capacity in Parliament might be helpful. For many years, the Industry and Parliamentary Trust have offered to parliamentarians fellowships to work in business. There is a similar facility for those who wish to have experience in the armed services, but I am not aware of any similar fellowships for those who wish to find out about teaching and education or social work and social care. I would be interested to explore with the Minister what might be done to make available to new Members of Parliament the option of choosing fellowships with a local authority or a healthcare trust to shadow for some months social workers and so on in order to gain a deeper understanding of what they do. I also share the interest of the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, in what will be done to support the mentors, the craftsmen, in terms of delivering these apprenticeships. What guidance and support will be given to employers to make sure that we recognise and offer investment in these people? I will be interested in what the Minister has to say on that matter. As a general rule of thumb, the more challenging the client group, the more we should invest in front-line staff. I take that experience from children’s homes, where the reverse happens. I am interested in the clauses in the Bill on education in prisons. How, for instance, would one implement this policy? Prison officers are often young men’s first experience of a father-like figure or, certainly, of a man in their lives who is not involved in crime or anti-social behaviour. A prison officer can be a very important figure for young men in custody. However, prison officers receive only eight weeks’ induction training, while probation officers have a degree-level qualification. I was very interested to read about the example in Northern Ireland, where prison officers are trained to become educational facilitators or advocates for young people in custody. There are two papers on this from 2008, one by Pike and Irwin and the other by Wilson and Irwin. I will send details to the Minister. I remember speaking to a prison officer in Feltham young offender institution, who had received training in this area and was very enthusiastic about it. How, under the new arrangements, would local education authorities influence policy in prisons on the training of prison officers so that they are developed as facilitators or advocates for education? I suspect that it might be quite difficult under the present—or future—arrangements, but I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response. I very much look forward to further deliberations on the Bill.