Lifelong Learning

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Curran and the excellent maiden speech we have just been treated to. She is a graduate of a tough school. Clydeside politics is not for wimps and the faint-hearted, but it is a rich academy producing gifted political figures—my noble friend is certainly one of those. We all wish her son Chris very well; he is MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh. I am sure I speak for everyone in congratulating my noble friend on her powerful speech here today. We are looking forward to many other interventions by her in the work of this House.

I turn to the subject of today’s debate, lifelong learning, which is an area where the UK—let us be frank—continues to struggle compared to the best. Over my years at the TUC, I worked with industrial training boards, sector skills councils, the Manpower Services Commission and the Learning and Skills Council, among other prominent institutions that have been involved. None survived political change. Regular institutional upheaval has been a feature of our efforts at lifelong learning in this country, and in my view a very damaging one. It contrasts with some other leading countries and with the higher education world, which has enjoyed relative stability at the same time as there has been turmoil on the vocational front.

It is very depressing to see the decline in the number of students at colleges of further education and in the adult learning world—down by 70% over the decade that has just passed. It is a sign of a sector in trouble, and we are nowhere near achieving the parity of esteem objective that many of us have long sought. Even apprenticeships, the strongest brand in the vocational learning armoury, have been subject to many changes and alterations to the rules. It is complicated territory.

I hope the Bill being piloted through Parliament at the moment by my noble friend on the Front Bench will address these weaknesses and launch a new surge of interest in lifelong learning. I also hope that it will be the last of the regular institutional changes, which I believe have been a drag anchor on progress. Lifelong learning has not been a glamorous subject, and it needs to be. I saw a report produced for the World Economic Forum earlier this week. It forecasted that two-fifths of the existing jobs will be outdated by artificial intelligence in the next five years. That is 40%, and if it is anything like accurate, this shows graphically the scale of the challenges.

How are we to help the people affected to adjust and adapt to the new world? It will not necessarily be a brave new world for many of them. Then there are the cohorts of people who did not succeed at school and struggled to get decent work. Many of them are a long way from achieving some of the basic skills that are necessary for life. One of the pleasures I have had was handing out qualification certificates to successful students in the union learning programme that the TUC ran, supported by my noble friend Lord Blunkett when he was Secretary of State. At that stage, in our peak years, we managed to bring 250,000 students through the processes and through the different courses. I am sorry to say that tribal politics took over and that was abolished by Gavin Williamson when he was Secretary of State.

In my view, it is very important that we concentrate on this Bill—on making it succeed and tackle some of the problems that we have. The country deserves it and the people of this country, particularly the ones who missed out at school, really deserve it. It is vital that we get on with it.

Education Bill

Lord Monks Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I, too, have a great deal of sympathy with this set of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Young, spoke to us about the unemployment statistics and the difficulties that young people in particular have in gaining apprenticeships at the moment. We have seen an extremely satisfactory increase in the number of apprenticeships over the past few years, but they have predominantly been in the older, 19-plus category. There is considerable difficulty for younger people. Employers are less anxious to take on young people. Indeed, those who go into apprenticeships are, on the whole, those who have already been employed by the same people—they move into an apprenticeship with the firm that they are already with.

We have had some discussion of the Select Committee report that was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. I think I remember that report saying that apprenticeship is the most satisfactory route into a career for a young person who does not go through university. It is an extremely satisfying and satisfactory way of teaching young people, and for them to learn not only a skill but about jobs and living, and the world of work. It is therefore very important indeed that we should support the apprenticeships. In the current situation with the recession, can my noble friend Lord Henley tell us what the Government’s response is to the Wolf report’s suggestions that there should be some incentive to employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, in taking on young apprentices? We talk about it being demand-led but in some circumstances demand needs a little nudging. Are the Government inclined to nudge demand in this way?

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, speaking as an apprentice Member of the House, I also support these amendments to help the Government to meet the objectives that they have set themselves. My noble friend Lord Young complimented the Government on those. There are tough, ambitious targets and there is money being provided. The resources are there but we are short of the means to carry through the action necessary to meet the targets. These amendments are part of the story that can at least fill the gap.

Apprenticeship, as my noble friend Lord Young said, has been in intensive care for a long time. When he was going down to British Telecom, 40 per cent-plus of boys leaving school at the minimum age were apprentices. Unfortunately, it was only 5 per cent of girls. That was 40 years or so ago but then the system collapsed. Traditional industries shrank, the new industries did not want the practice at all and employers poached rather than trained. With a little more money, they took staff from the employers who did train. The original attempt to stop that was the Conservative Government’s Industrial Training Act and a levy grant mechanism, but the system did not stand up against that pressure. With the higher education expansion a little later and perhaps some faults in apprenticeship itself—being time-serving rather than competence-based—the whole thing shook and not much was left.

The result is pretty disastrous for Britain in terms of low productivity and a poor record in this area compared with some similar countries. It is much worse than anything in the higher education field. I was in Sweden recently looking at apprenticeships. Apprentices there are required to be able to speak a foreign language by the time they have completed their apprenticeships. Certainly, they are required to be competent in English and are now encouraged to become competent in German or French as well. Some of them are becoming competent in Chinese. This is a moving target and we are well behind. Reference has been made to the educational problems of some of the young people who we are trying to squeeze into the opportunities available.

I welcome the priority that the Government are giving to this matter but we need more ways of ensuring that progress will be made. I have been a big supporter of Investors in People from its inception. It is odd that its website does not refer to apprenticeships and that they are not a central feature of that website. We should be spreading this concept into newer occupations. As the noble Baroness has just said, this is a very good method of learning for people who do not feel comfortable with the traditional academic route. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic response to this group of amendments.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I, too, support the spirit of these amendments. It is good to create more apprenticeships but this matter also concerns the ethos behind those apprenticeships. There is a view in this country that unless people get academic results and go to sixth form and university, they have failed in some way. However, that is not the view in other countries. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Monks, made—that we need to look at the models followed in other European countries. Switzerland, for example, has an apprenticeship scheme. I know this from personal experience because I have a Swiss cousin. Her two sons were not academically able but she did not regard the fact that they did not go on to higher education as a failure. She was delighted that they undertook an apprenticeship scheme that was linked to higher education. Germany also has a very advanced system. This is about not just creating more apprenticeships but making sure that other thoughts are borne in mind, such as learning a language or going back to basic learning needs.

On Monday I was lucky enough to visit BBC North in Salford, which has established an apprenticeship scheme. No qualifications are required to enter that apprenticeship scheme. The scheme is linked to what is called an ambassador scheme. They take young people post-16 from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Those young people have all sorts of problems. Once they have got over their fear of apprenticeships—some young people fear apprenticeships—a large number of them take them up. The BBC guides those young people as they go along.

For example, a young Asian lad spoke to all those on the visit. He was very articulate, had great presentational skills but came from a very disadvantaged background. I asked him what his apprenticeship covered and he answered, “Catering”. He served us our lunch. I said to the director of human resources, “Given that lad’s presentational skills, perhaps catering is not for him”. The director of human resources replied, “Actually, you are right. He discovered that he has presentational skills and gets on well with people. He also has a great interest in football, so I am planning for him to be an assistant floor manager on ‘Match of the Day”’. We should consider that ability to guide people as they go along and develop their skills. This is about not just creating apprenticeships but the whole wraparound that goes with it.