The report acknowledged that extra funding announced in the 2019 and 2021 spending reviews would result in real increases in funding per student up to 2024-25. However, that only partially reverses earlier cuts, and increasing numbers of 16 to 18-year-olds up to 2030 will put further pressure on finances after 2024, when departmental spending plans have been scaled back. The director of the IFS has himself said the Government’s real-term cuts to further education are:
“not a set of priorities consistent with a long term growth strategy. Or indeed levelling up.”
In contrast, the Labour party sees how a thriving further education sector is essential to growth. That is why a Labour Government will create a skills system that works for businesses and for people across our country, by reforming the apprenticeships levy, devolving skills budgets and delivering a national mission to upskill, led by a new Skills England. Devolving skills budgets in particular is something I would welcome after seeing, from my time leading Trafford Council and as the work and skills lead for Greater Manchester, the real need for skills policy to be better aligned and integrated with regional economic policy and local labour markets, to deliver a more localised, tailored approach to skills provision. In short, colleges, like those currently doing great work in the Trafford—and indeed Stockport—area, have a critical role to play in any plans to grow the economy, but they need support and investment to be able to do that after years of declining funding for adults’ and young people’s education.
I hope that when the Minister replies, he will set out what further support and investment will be provided to Trafford College, and colleges like it across the country, to tackle the workforce crisis that is holding them back, holding students back and holding our local, regional and national economy back, too.
4.32 pm