It can get worse, you know.
I am quoting from the documents so that they are on the record, so that when MPs see it they know I am not making this up. This is real stuff. Listen to this:
“We have recognised the need for additional qualifications alongside A levels and T Levels, including small qualifications designed to be taken as part of a study programme including A levels. However, we recognise that students who traditionally take”
things such as diplomas, two BTECs or extended diplomas
“tend to have achieved lower GCSE grades than their peers who progress onto A level study. They are also more likely to be Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students, have SEND and have received free school meals.”
So the Government admit in this impact document that one of the consequences of this is that the following people will suffer: black, Asian and minority ethnic students, those with SEND and those who have received free meals. They will not actually have much of a chance of going to university. This is a disgraceful and shaming statement to put into any public document.
It gets worse: those from
“Asian and black ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be affected by the proposals, as they are particularly strongly represented on qualifications expected to no longer be available in the future.”
It then does disabled students and disability, with
“these students being more strongly negatively impacted by being unable to achieve level 3 in the reformed landscape.”
So disabled students are going to be disadvantaged in this reformed landscape. Scrap the blasted landscape! It is absolutely disgusting. Quite frankly, I am very ashamed that a Conservative Government have done this. What they are denying to lots of people—black, Asian, ethnic minority, disadvantaged and disabled students—is hope and aspiration.
The Conservative Party at the moment has been accused of abandoning lots of the things it has traditionally lived by. One of the things it has lived by is improvement in education. With respect to my own family, my grandfather left school at 12, and my father left elementary school at 16 and studied all sorts of other things to get on, leave and eventually become a senior civil servant. That is what Conservatives believe in—hope and aspiration—yet this denies hope and aspiration. As Browning said, the reach should exceed the grasp,
“Or what’s a heaven for?”
They are denied that reach. This is a shaming thing. I am very ashamed that a Conservative Government could do it, and all I can say to your Lordships is that I apologise for the Government.