Ian Sollom MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I move this new clause on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), who is herself a school governor, to highlight the severe shortage of school governors and the increasing responsibilities they face. The recruitment of governors has become increasingly difficult. Indeed, the National Governance Association estimates that in 2022 vacancies hit a six-year high at 20,000. Its latest report last year revealed that 76% of schools found it difficult to recruit governors, while 44% of boards had two or more vacancies, up from 33% three years ago. Moreover, 30% of governors considered resigning because of an inability to balance their governance responsibilities with their jobs. Evidence shows that the responsibilities of school governors have significantly increased over time, and Ofsted said that since schools’ autonomy increased, starting with the Education and Inspections Act 2006, the role has become more important but also more complex. Historically, school governors provided formal oversight, but they are now also expected to ensure regular performance reviews and financial oversight, and to hold school leadership accountable. The position has become increasingly professionalised, and Ofsted has identified that growth in responsibility as a key factor in many schools struggling to achieve a good or higher rating. That is largely because governors fail to focus on holding school leadership accountable, and have that split responsibility with other aspects of the role. The new clause seeks to probe that issue more, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 39 Establishment of Child Protection Authority “(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, establish a Child Protection Authority for England. (2) The purpose of such an Authority will be to— (a) improve practice in child protection; (b) provide advice and make recommendations to the Government on child protection policy and reforms to improve child protection; (c) inspect institutions and settings at some times and in such ways as it considers necessary and appropriate to ensure compliance with child protection standards; and (d) monitor the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and other inquiries relating to the protection of children. (3) The Authority must act with a view to— (a) safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children; (b) ensuring that institutions and settings fulfil their responsibilities in relation to child protection.”— (Munira Wilson.) This new cl a use would seek to fulfil the second recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in establishing a Child Protection Authority for England. Brought up, and read the First time .

• 11 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Home education is a choice taken by parents for a number of different reasons, as we have previously heard when debating this Bill. However, just because a parent chooses to educate their child at home and not take up a local authority school place, it should not mean that their child cannot access the examination system. At present, access to examinations for home-educated children is extremely limited, as there are only commercial providers in that space, which means that it becomes very expensive for parents. Examination space is often limited, especially for those with SEND. This new clause would ensure that all children can access and sit national examinations in order to prepare for life in further education and the world of work. In the interests of time, I will keep my remarks brief. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move that the clause be read a Second time. I am moving new clause 3 on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman). The Children and Families Act 2014 sets out timeframes for local authorities to decide whether to do an education, health and care plan needs assessment, and then for the resulting education, health and care plan to be issued. Local authorities have six weeks from application to decide whether to carry out an EHCNA, and a total of 20 weeks from application to issue an EHCP. Across England in 2023, however, only 50.3% of EHCPs were issued within that statutory 20-week deadline. Some places perform much worse than that—in Essex, only 0.9% were issued within the 20-week deadline. New clause 3 is about reporting that. Transparency is a first key step in accountability, so publishing local authorities’ performance in relation to those statutory deadlines is the aim of the amendment as that first step. It is essentially a free change because local authorities already have the information gathered, so there should not be any additional resources needed. It could in fact help, because it would cut down on freedom of information requests, for example, which are a burden on councils. It will also cut down on the level of communication required with concerned parents constantly contacting to ask when their child is going to receive their EHCP. Also included within new clause 3, local authorities will have the opportunity to explain any reasons and lay out their plans for improving performance. That kind of transparency helps direct resources well, and I think it is a good, sensible step,

• 6 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned . —(Vicky Foxcroft.)

• 6 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. Broadly, the Liberal Democrats welcome clause 51 and its counterpart, not least because we desperately need new special schools. The previous Government approved fewer than half of the 85 applications from councils to open SEND free schools in 2022. This is a real part of unblocking that, so we agree with the Government. We tabled amendment 48 because a potential loophole is created in the now well-established rules on faith-based selection. Those rules apply to academies and will continue to do so, but under clause 51 not all new schools will be academies. The amendment would bring all new schools into line with the current established principles of faith-based selection for academies. It is a very simple amendment. I think the error was made inadvertently during drafting, and hopefully the Government will support it.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Amendment 46 is very similar to amendment 33, in the name of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, in that it removes subsection (3) and condition A, and for much the same reasons. We are extremely concerned that a parent wanting to remove their child with special educational needs and disabilities from a special school will be subject to this extra bureaucracy. We know that we have a SEND crisis. There are so many parents, even when their child is in a special school, who feel that the school is not meeting their child’s educational needs and that their child is better served through a home education. I would point out that the local authority does not always have the best information on children in special schools. They will be turning to the schools themselves for a view, maybe more so than to the parents. There may be a bit of iniquity there. I would like to question the Minister on the circumstances in which the local authority can refuse permission. Condition A implies almost an equivalence between children with special educational needs and children where there are safeguarding concerns, which seems quite a parallel to draw in legislation. The other question I have is about the timescale for the decision making. We know that local authorities can get bogged down in their processes. How does the Minister plan to ensure that authorities are not taking a long time to grant permission to parents to take their children out of special needs schools when they feel that school is not meeting their child’s needs?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My understanding is that this change follows a trend of children being deprived of their liberty outside the statutory route by being housed in unsuitable accommodation not registered with Ofsted, often far from home and family. That has been partly addressed in the questions from the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. The success of this provision will depend on the regulations. What actually makes a setting capable of being used for the deprivation of liberty? Will there be a requirement with respect to education in that setting? Will they need to be registered with Ofsted? It is not entirely clear. When will regulations relating to this provision be brought forward? Is it the intention that they will mirror the scheme for the secure accommodation? The law around the deprivation of liberty is incredibly complex. Without proper legal advice and representation, it is very hard for families to understand what is going on and what options they have. It is not clear yet what legal aid will be available to families or the child themselves when an application is made under the new route. Can the Minister clarify what will be available with respect to legal aid, or put a timetable on when we will get that clarification?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. The Liberal Democrats welcome the new requirements on local authorities in the clause to assess whether certain care leavers aged under 25 require the provision of staying close support. The charity Become, which supports care-experienced children, has found that care-experienced young people are nine times more likely to experience homelessness than other young people and that homelessness rates for care leavers have increased by 54% in the last five years. This is a really important clause. Amendment 40 deals with the definition of staying close support. It uses the existing definition of the services, which should be set out in the local offer from local authorities. Become’s care advice line has found that care leavers are often unaware of the financial support available from the local authority, such as council tax discounts, higher education bursaries and other benefits. That can lead them to face unnecessary financial hardship. That is the reason for the financial support part of the amendment. More generally, financial literacy can have a huge negative impact on care leavers, who are more likely to live independently from an earlier age than their peers—they are not necessarily living with parents or guardians. We would really like to see local authorities lay out that financial literacy support to help them understand what is available to them. Amendment 41 would add information about supported lodgings to the list of available support services. Supported lodgings are a family-based provision within a broader category of supported accommodation. A young person aged 16 to 23 lives in a room within their supporting lodgings, which are the home of a host, who is tasked with supporting the young person as they go towards adulthood and independence, giving them practical help and teaching them important life skills such as financial literacy, budgeting and cooking. Requiring local authorities to signpost care leavers to any of the supported lodging provisions in their area could make a real difference to those young people and their lives, so I would really appreciate support for the amendment.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 1, page 2, line 11, leave out “may (in particular)” and insert “should, where appropriate”.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will withdraw it then, sorry; I was not clear on the process. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Broadly, the Liberal Democrats welcome the new requirement on local authorities to offer family group decision making, which gives those who care for children, including family members, the opportunity to be involved in putting together that plan for their welfare. The provision strengthens the right to hear the child’s voice, which as we heard in the evidence session is important. We have a few concerns. As the provision is currently laid out, it might be a little ambiguous. There are lots of different models of family group decision making around, so we would like clarification from the Minister about the principles and standards that are set out in regard to what it actually looks like in practice. Cases where there is domestic violence or coercive control can be hard to identify, so we would like guidance on the principles around that. We would also like to encourage local authorities to probe into what family group decision making should look like and who should be involved. One example that came to us from the Family Rights Group was of Azariah Hope, who was a care-experienced young parent very frustrated about how she was not offered a family group conference because the local authority presumed that she did not have a family or friend network to draw on. Amendment 36 strengthens the right for the child to be involved, but still gives the local authority the power to decide on the appropriateness of who should be involved. We would like to hear more from the Minister about what those principles and standards should be for taking family group decision making forward.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Apologies.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her response. We have heard from across the Committee how much support there is for the principles of the clause. I hear what Government Members have said about the amendments not giving the relevant social workers and facilitators enough flexibility in their decision making. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham pointed out, there is a risk that without a stronger direction to include the child in those meetings, not enough emphasis will be placed on it. Amendment 36 would insert the words “should, where appropriate”, which leaves the decision in the hands of the local authority, but gives a stronger steer that, where possible, the child needs to be included. That is something that many child-centred charities would support. We will not withdraw the amendment. Question put, That the amendment be made. The Committee proceeded to a Division .

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q What is the difference with the maintained school if that is sitting quite isolated around other academies? It has not got that in-place support around it. How does that work effectively—is it better than re-brokering to another academy? Paul Whiteman: For me, it is not necessarily about the legal status of the school. It is about the collaboration and support around that school from the rest of the education network and society around it. We have seen some really good work in the last few years in the north-east with the way it has been building those networks around schools that happen to be in trusts and schools that are not in a trust, and making sure that support is delivered. The provisions in the Bill mean that you could make different decisions about the school’s legal status and actually make sure the support is delivered in a way that works for that school.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I think I am quoting you correctly in saying that academisation was not a silver bullet. Could you elaborate on the factors that are in play where it has not worked in particular areas? Paul Whiteman: The data we look at shows quality schools and improvement outside the academy system as well as in the academy system. Where you get particular schools that are very difficult to broker, or have been re-brokered on a number of occasions, we need a different answer. I think it sits with the locality, and the local education networks and economy, to run to the aid of that school and try to improve it. I was also careful to say that my comments are not an attack on academies or the good work they do. It is about finding the answer for the individual school.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You have mentioned a couple of times the change with elective home education from philosophy to reasons around the provision in schools. Do you have thoughts on what accountability there should be for schools? Ofsted currently inspects the schools, and it does not look at reasons why children might not be in school electively. Is there some mechanism that you see around that?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q There is hopefully a very simple answer to this question. I am trying to pick through your previous answers on the curriculum. This question relates to the Bill. Should RE be included in the national curriculum? Paul Barber: We are very content with the current position. If there were proposals to change that, we would need to work very carefully with everybody to try to get to a position that retains the necessary safeguards, as we see it, contained in the current position. Nigel Genders: I would agree with that.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Higher Education Regulatory Approach · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. The Liberal Democrats fully support free speech, which, as several Members have pointed out, is at the heart of academic freedom, but it was clear from the start that this piece of legislation was not based on evidence, was not proportionate, and was fundamentally flawed. We welcomed the pausing of its implementation last year, and I welcome now the acknowledgement of its flaws and the Secretary of State’s move to repeal the provisions on the tort and on student unions in particular. I must, however, press her on the fundamental question of why the Act is necessary. Higher education institutions already operate within a legal framework to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for academic staff, students, employees and visiting speakers, and universities have already taken action to improve their policies and processes relating to freedom of speech. Universities UK, which represents over 140 universities, has reissued and expanded its guidance in this area, as well as having regular discussions with university leaders to support them with these challenges. Would the Secretary of State consider taking a more meaningful step to ensure that students are safe, welcome and protected at universities by giving higher education institutions a statutory duty of care for their students? The Secretary of State also referred to the well-documented fears of minority groups, particularly those in Jewish communities, that the Act in its previous form would allow a platform for extremist views, and she mentioned Holocaust denial. We had some indication of this in her statement, but will she provide more details of her plans to protect those from minority groups and communities on our university campuses?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices · Hansard source

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  I add my thanks to the Minister for advance sight of the statement. It is good to have the Government’s next steps to try to support fans, performers and others working in the live events industry laid out in the announcement. We know the huge value of live events in this country, which make a great contribution to our economic as well as our cultural wellbeing, and it is right that the Government are taking action. Too many fans across the country have fallen prey to sharp practices and touts ripping them off, and the Liberal Democrats are supportive of taking action. The Liberal Democrats have long called for the implementation of the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations to crack down on ticket resale. Those recommendations should be leading the Government forward on this issue. Measures such as capping ticket resales are important. Can the Minister provide greater clarity on the Government’s intentions in that regard? Will he suggest what cap on ticket resales the Government would favour at the moment and what new powers of enforcement they will give to trading standards and the CMA? Beyond those measures, will the Government consider being more ambitious by, for example, giving consumers more control by requiring ticket companies to provide accurate information on price increases or answering Liberal Democrat calls to review the use of transaction fees? I want to be clear that we welcome the Government’s looking at the queuing systems used by ticket sellers in both the primary and resale markets and considering measures that could address the current situation, which, as the Minister described, too often feels unfair and arbitrary to those fans on the end of it. Hearing the voices of fans in this discussion is undoubtedly important, so we really welcome the consultation, but fans also want to know that the Government will get on and act to solve these problems. To conclude, may I ask the Minister to inform the House about when fans will start to see some changes being implemented?

• 26 Nov 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

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  St Neots in my constituency is the largest town in Cambridgeshire, and it does not have a jobcentre; residents have to travel up to Huntingdon each week for their benefits. In the absence of a jobcentre, social enterprise has taken place. Last week I attended the launch of the St Neots citizen hub, which aims to connect individuals with opportunities and employers with talent. It provides a safe space in the heart of the community to address the fundamental issues of skills gaps—including life skills—social isolation and financial insecurity, and it is a great example of the new model for jobcentres. Will the Secretary of State ensure that staff at the jobcentre in Huntingdon can come down for one day a week so that residents do not have to keep making the journey up to Huntingdon?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Holidays in School Term Time · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank those Members who have made contributions, and the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for bringing this debate before us on behalf of the petitioners. I thank the 250,000 members of the public who made their voices heard by signing the petition so that it could be heard in Parliament. The UK is facing an absence crisis in schools, it is fair to say. While the pandemic gave rise to a huge spike in pupil absence, since the restrictions were fully lifted in 2022, absence rates have yet to drop back down to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, the general absence rate in the 2022-23 academic year was still over one and a half times higher than the rates recorded during the six years before the pandemic. Persistent absence—missing 10% or more of lessons over a year—does a huge amount of damage to children’s education and prospects, both academically and socially. To emphasise the point, 19.2% of children in England were persistently absent by that definition during the last academic year. The Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Government’s mission to lower school absence rates. The announcement of free breakfast clubs in all primary schools in England, in a programme due to roll out next year, is a very good way to start addressing the persistent absence problem. However, the Liberal Democrats also believe that the use of increasingly punitive measures to tackle pupil absence more widely is wrong. Parents and other primary carers of children are responsible not just for their academic attainment but for their overall wellbeing and learning. Inflexible fines, which have also recently increased, are not the one-size-fits-all answer that they are often made out to be. Of course, fines work as a deterrent in many cases, but we have to encourage—demand, even—that schools first work with parents to understand the root causes of absences, which involves addressing the needs of absent children, and then work to find the solutions to get them back in school. Simply slapping parents with financial punishment for issues that are often completely out of their control is not the answer. The petition concerns the specific issue of absence due to holidays. I am sure that no hon. Member here would doubt the importance of family holidays for children. Whether abroad or in the UK, the chance for a child to have a break from their usual routine, perhaps while visiting and socialising with relatives or seeing historical sites, is important. The hon. Member for Lichfield has fond memories of childhood holidays in Wales; perhaps he is a budding Dylan Thomas. Such experiences of other cultures are invaluable for personal growth. For many families, organising holidays during the 175 days a year that their children are not expected to be in school is absolutely not a problem. Many parents can afford to pay the frankly enormously hiked holiday package prices during periods of high demand, and being packed into tourist attractions at the busiest times of year is just accepted as a fact of life. However, as other Members have already pointed out today, for some families those factors, particularly the financial ones, are completely prohibitive. For a child who is unable to go on holiday outside term time, the lesson in which they are tasked with writing an account of how they spent their summer may well be one they completely dread. Feeling excluded, singled out or sidelined in daily life is the antithesis of an inclusive education. Does the Minister agree that the burden should not be on parents to shell out thousands of pounds on the additional costs of a holiday or risk facing inflexible fines, and that instead airlines and travel operators should stop taking advantage of such families? Nearly doubling the price of the same holiday package from one day to the next is simply exploitative and completely out of line with any surge in demand. We have talked in other contexts about surge pricing this year; it is exploitative. The school holidays issue is indicative of a wider issue, which is that school absence is generally—indeed, inherently—linked to a family’s financial situation. In the 2022-23 school year, 36.5% of children eligible for free school meals were absent from school, compared with only 15.6% of children who were not eligible. The Government’s very provision of those meals and the new breakfast clubs that I mentioned indicates that they see the correlation between a family’s finances and a child’s attendance. I therefore ask the Minister what the Government will do to relieve holiday-related financial burdens for those who clearly need it most. Aside from financial concerns, we should also consider that term dates are decided by local authorities and schools, so we could encourage them to organise term dates in such a way that the largest number of families in their communities can benefit from the 175 days a year that can be used for holidays. For example, giving a lengthy Christmas holiday to a community where a large number of families are not Christian can mean that those communities are effectively barred from properly celebrating their own religious festivals, or face fines if they take their children out of school to do so. Some schools have found a way around that issue by pushing together all their inset and training days, rather than spreading them out over the year, so that families have consecutive days to celebrate those festivals or even to book some time away together outside high-demand times. That indicates part of the answer: a way forward that is about collaboration, rather than simply punishment. I am trying to highlight that, in many cases, it is not that parents are actively choosing to take their child out of school, but that their child has been forced out of the school system by factors outside their control. I have only scratched the surface of financial burdens, but we should not debate the issue without addressing the point of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) regarding the needs of pupils with SEND, to which group I would also add young carers or those with mental health conditions. Their needs are consistently not being met in the classroom or at home, because of the knock-on effect and pressure. I will give an example from my constituency. Across Cambridgeshire, the rates of school absence for those with SEN support and those with EHCPs—education, health and care plans—are quietly rising year on year. I suggest that that is a direct consequence of inadequate SEND and EHCP funding, which, in Cambridgeshire’s case, is stuck at levels decided nearly 10 years ago. That is a multifaceted problem that needs to be tackled constructively, not punitively. The Liberal Democrats have long called for measures, particularly around mental health, such as having a dedicated, qualified mental health professional in every primary and secondary school, and giving local authorities extra funding to reduce the amount that schools have to pay towards the costs of EHCPs. The bottom line is that we need to understand why a child is not attending school, whether that is because of holidays, the financial reasons that I mentioned, SEND or young caring responsibilities. Understanding that is the most effective step towards beginning to reduce the problem; we have to understand it if we are going to do anything about it. I suggest that the Government adopt the Liberal Democrat proposal of setting up a register of children who are not in school to build that understanding and, therefore, remove the underlying barriers to attendance. The solution to this petition, and indeed the wider issue of school absence, is not to make children attend school, but to ensure that they are able to do so—not forcing but enabling them. The Government, parents and care givers jointly have a duty to provide children with the education they deserve. Costly punishments are not the solution.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Apprenticeships and T-Levels · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for introducing it. I am sure we all agree that we owe it to our young people to ensure that they have access to all education and training options, and that those options are of the very highest standard. That is not always the case in the present system, which is having an impact not just on young people and their futures, but, as has been said, on the country’s economic development and prospects. Apprenticeships, vocational education and skills are all vital if the Government are serious about their growth mission and breaking down barriers to opportunity. I think we all share those ambitions, but the system needs reform across the board, starting right at the beginning by ensuring that all young people are fully aware and informed of all their options—many thousands, as it may be—post 16 and post 18. We need to see an improvement in the quality of careers education, information, advice and guidance in schools to support them making those decisions.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Apprenticeships and T-Levels · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree, and I will come back to that point later. The services that inform and offer guidance need to be informed themselves about the local and national job market, which industries and sectors are growing, and which skills are in demand in order to support students into top-quality jobs. We know that there are skills shortages, and giving higher-quality, useful information will be essential to plugging that skills gap. On apprenticeships, the Lib Dems recognise that we not only need more apprenticeships, but that they need to be more attractive to young people. Guaranteeing that an apprenticeship pays at least the national minimum wage would be a good place to start. The Chancellor announced a welcome increase in the apprenticeship wage in the Budget last month, but even after those changes, that amount is still only just over 60% of the national living wage. That is quite a disincentive for young people to take up an apprenticeship. We have also heard today that the apprenticeship levy is not working as well as it should, and that employers often cannot get the funding they need to train staff. In 2023-24, the levy raised £3.9 billion for the Treasury, but the apprenticeship budget, which is separate, awarded only £2.7 billion. Although £500 million goes to the devolved nations under the Barnett formula, as it should, that still leaves a shortfall of £700 million, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash). That money has been paid in through the levy, and therefore to the Treasury, but does not reach employers; as was said, it is raised for skills but not spent on skills. That is at a time when the Government say they are keen to encourage businesses to invest in skills. We need that to be directed to skills. Furthermore, the system was designed so that levy payers do not spend all their levy funds and so that small businesses can access the levy to fund apprenticeships. That said, 98% of the apprenticeship budget was spent each year for the past three years, and if large employers spend all their levy funds, there would be no apprenticeship funding remaining for small businesses. We know that small businesses are crucial to the apprentice system. Non-levy-paying employers recruit more apprentices each year than levy-paying businesses: last year, that was 42,000 apprentices under 19 compared with 35,000 by larger recruiters—a difference of 7,000. We are waiting for more details on the Government’s new growth and skills levy, but if they are serious about pivoting the apprenticeship system towards young people, they need to sort out apprenticeship funding. On T-levels, the Liberal Democrats welcome the ambition to achieve equal value between academic and vocational routes—that has been a common theme across many parties for a considerable time—but we do not agree with the previous Government’s decision simply to scrap dozens of BTEC courses. Those qualifications are a middle pathway that allows many students, including those who find the T-level entry requirements simply too high, to benefit from a combination of academic and applied qualifications. Research indicates that BTECs significantly improve university entry rates for both white working-class and black students. Many parts of industry are concerned about T-levels. For example, the hospitality sector prides itself on having no barriers to entry to those with no industry experience, and opens its doors to people with low educational attainment. That encourages a more diverse, inclusive and accessible workforce. However, the hospitality T-level requires 16 to 18-year-olds to have 5 GCSEs of grade 5 and above. That excludes a whole host of young people with many non-academic skills and talents, who could make successful careers in hospitality. It is important that we keep BTEC routes for those people. As other Members have mentioned, there have been problems with the roll-out of T-levels, and concerns have been expressed by education providers and employers about their ability to deliver industry placements. A report by the Education Policy Institute this year highlighted issues with student retention, with nearly a third of first-year health and science T-level students dropping out of their programme. Until the new T-levels are well established, understood by students and employers, and proven to be successful, rolling back BTECs, which are successful, would be a huge mistake. The Government’s decision earlier in the year to review the defunding of BTECs was welcome. Now, however, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) pointed out, the delay in the outcome of that review is affecting planning for the next academic year and the opportunities available to young people. So, I urge the Government to get on and publish the outcome of that review. Finally, with a lot of issues around skills at the moment, it seems that the answer is “Skills England”. I will echo the words of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire in his opening remarks that the King’s Speech referred to a Skills England Bill, whereas the Bill that is in the other place does not refer to Skills England at all. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss Skills England when we consider the actual legislation.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Higher Education Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. It is clear that the current university funding system is broken. Not only is it pushing many universities into a financial crisis, but the changes made by the previous Conservative Government have left us with a system that is deeply unfair in how it treats students. It simply cannot be right to raise fees without taking steps to substantially reform the system to make it fairer. By abolishing maintenance grants for disadvantaged students in 2016, the Conservatives put up a barrier between disadvantaged students and higher education. The Liberal Democrats opposed that abolition at the time, and we have consistently campaigned to restore those grants ever since. The previous Government also cut the repayment threshold to £25,000, so today’s students have to repay hundreds of pounds more per year than older graduates on the same salary. Perhaps worst of all, they lengthened the repayment period from 30 years to 40 years for those starting courses from August 2023 onwards, so today’s students will still be paying back their loans in 2066. Does the Secretary of State accept that the first priority must be to fully reform the system, fixing the damage that those changes made and creating a system that is fair for all students? That, rather than simply putting up fees without those much wider reforms, has to be the best way forward. The crisis in funding for universities must be addressed, but have the Government considered how to support universities without raising fees? Does the Secretary of State agree that an important first step would be to recognise the benefits of international students and give universities stability in that area of policy? Does she also agree that any reform must examine how universities currently spend their allocation of £10,000 per student per year, so that that money is spent as efficiently as possible?