My Lords, in the choice between the Minister’s amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, we are faced with action versus less action. Lloyd George famously said, “When traversing a chasm, it is desirable to do so in one leap.” I cannot think of any good reason why the House would not go for the serious action rather than the lesser action.
We are supposed to be agreed on the objective, which is that more young people should have the opportunity to engage in technical, vocational and apprenticeship routes which are suitable to them. It is very difficult to engage in those routes if you do not know about them. We are talking about schoolchildren who for the most part are not aware of those routes; they are in schools which have an academic curriculum. It is a big problem going back to the Education Act 1944, which, alas, we seem to have been incapable of putting right over the course of 50 years, that we have an unfit-for-purpose education system so far as vocational and technical education is concerned and pathways through to apprenticeships which are still largely non-existent. We are trying to put this right, and there is a broad consensus in the House that it should be put right—the problem is that the Government have produced a mouse instead of a Bill. I am afraid that this Bill is largely a placeholder put in the space marked “technical education, apprenticeships, levelling up”—we know that the Prime Minister thinks that levelling up is part of his core mission, so he has to have something which occupies that space—but it does not have a policy in it that will match the objectives.
The Minister should be prepared simply to accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, since it is technically possible, and it would lead to a big difference in the exposure of school-age
children to technical education options. It should happen, and the fact that it is not going to happen, and it appears that we are going to have vote on it in 15 or 20 minutes, is because the Government are half-hearted, inconsistent and largely AWOL on whether we are actually going to move and start transforming provision in our schools and our educational system relative to technical education. I hope that the noble Lord’s amendment is put to the vote and carried, and maybe, on the rebound, when hopefully they are faced with a large majority, the Government will accept it.
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Those of us who have had responsibility for these issues know only too well that putting before young people serious information about alternative options is a real problem in our schools. The noble Lord started the city technology colleges, and I took forward the academies programme. I am strongly in favour of schools having strong leadership and governance. You do not get successful institutions in any walk of life unless they are purpose-driven and have strong leadership and governance. The other side of having strong leadership and governance is that, by and large, the headteachers of those institutions are not wildly keen for students to go to other schools and colleges. That is for obvious reasons, as the noble Lord said: because they lose £4,000 or £5,000, and because they probably believe that what their school offers is better than what another school would offer. This is a particular problem in respect of the university technical colleges, because they recruit their students at the age of 14, which is precisely midway through secondary education. The last thing that a headteacher wants—and they will be looking after number one first and foremost—is for their students to have information about options that could lead them to leave the school halfway through.
There is a systemic failure here, which can only really be addressed by having an absolutely enforceable right for alternative providers to come into the school. For the most part—there will always be exceptions; we know that you get particularly enlightened headteachers —human nature is not going to work in an aligned way in respect of alternative providers being able to come in. We also know that that is the case because we tried the halfway house before. An amendment to a previous Bill tabled by the noble Lord did not have the teeth of this one. It did not create an enforceable right to come into a school and was dependent on guidance. He was very charitable about the guidance, saying that it was ignored, but the guidance was so weak that, even if it had been fully observed, it still would not have delivered the policy objective that he sought to achieve.
At this the second time of addressing this issue, we must not flunk it; we must actually see that young people are given the opportunity to go to an institution which, if they have a technical bent, is more suitable to them and which will prepare the way for them to go to an apprenticeship. There are number of ways in which we need to address this chronic issue—and we shall come later to issues relating directly to the apprenticeships system, which is still woefully inadequate in this country. One way to do so is to see that young people of school age, particularly at 14, which is when they start developing a greater awareness of the talents that will enable them to succeed in life, have information about, and are able
to choose, institutions which are best suited to developing those talents. We cannot have an education system in a first-rate country like ours unless it is able to deliver that objective. That is what is at stake here. I hope that the House will support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker.