Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill Consideration of Bill,
not amended in the Public Bill Committee Clause 1 Extension of duty
to provide careers guidance in schools 9.36am Sir Christopher Chope
(Christchurch) (Con) I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, after
subsection (4) insert— “(4A) In subsection (4)(c), omit “the person
giving it considers”.” Mr Speaker With this it will be convenient
to discuss amendment 2, page 1,...Request free trial
Education (Careers
Guidance in Schools) Bill
Consideration of Bill, not amended in the Public Bill
Committee
Clause 1
Extension of duty to provide careers guidance in schools
9.36am
(Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move amendment
1, page 1, after subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) In subsection (4)(c), omit “the person giving it
considers”.”
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 2, page 1,
leave out subsection (5).
Let me put the amendment in context, for colleagues who have not
looked at the text of section 42A of the Education Act 1997.
Under section 42A(4)(c), the Act states:
“The responsible authorities must secure that careers guidance
provided under subsection (1)…is guidance that the person giving
it considers will promote the best interests of the pupils to
whom it is given.”
In other words, the test is a subjective one on the part of the
provider, rather than an objective test. My amendment would
remove the words
“the person giving it considers”
thereby making it an objective test for the responsible
authorities when securing the careers guidance required by the
Act.
The context of the amendment is very much about quality. I was
delighted that in the debate that took place in Westminster Hall
on Tuesday there was much emphasis on quality in careers
guidance, and a lot of reference to what the Gatsby rules set
out. Let me briefly tell the House about some of the points
raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (), who introduced that debate.
She said how important it is that children know what they want to
do when they leave school, but that they will not be able to do
that if they are not told about all the career opportunities
available to them, the qualifications they will need, and the
different educational paths they can take.
For example, when my daughter was at school she aspired to become
a member of the veterinary profession, and I am proud to say that
that is what she is. However, it was difficult because her
teachers said, “Well, I’m not sure you’re going to be suitable
for science A-levels”, and obviously without them she would never
have been able to get the qualifications to go to veterinary
school and attain the qualification that she has. The good advice
she got from a teacher at the school meant that she could embark
on science A-levels. That is a personal example from my own
experience of the importance of quality. I do not doubt that some
people at the school would have taken the view that the best
thing was for her not to do science A-levels, but on any
objective assessment it was the right decision. I therefore agree
absolutely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton.
My right hon. Friend went to say:
“The latest report from the Centre for Social Justice says that
there is a growing need for tailored, innovative and inspiring
career guidance with links to role models and
employers.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c.
211WH.]
I think everybody agrees that that is so, but it is a concern
that there is no single place where a young person can get
comprehensive Government-backed careers information. The Centre
for Social Justice also found that schools are not consistently
delivering good quality careers advice. About one in five schools
does not meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks, a series of
internationally respected benchmarks that help the Government to
quality assure careers advice in schools. That is very
serious.
Everybody seems to agree that the Gatsby benchmarks should be the
standard, yet we know that only one in five schools meet any of
them. The question I want to pose, in moving the amendment, is
this: what are the Government doing to ensure that we get not
just careers guidance, but good quality careers guidance? I
remind the House of the eight Gatsby benchmarks of good careers
guidance: a stable careers programme; learning from career and
labour market information; addressing the needs of each pupil;
linking curriculum learning to careers; encounters with employers
and employees; experiences of work places; encounters with
further and higher education; and personal guidance. The fact
that so many schools do not even comply with any of them should
raise significant alarm bells. That is why my right hon. Friend
the Member for Tatton, in concluding her remarks in the
Westminster Hall debate, said:
“How do the Government plan to ensure that careers guidance is of
a high quality for all pupils, irrespective of where they come
from?”—[Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c.
212WH.]
That is the issue.
I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Education,
my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (), who was not able to attend
the Westminster Hall debate, on the Front Bench. In welcoming him
to the debate, may I say how much I appreciate his decision to
give Ferndown Upper School in my constituency a significant
capital grant for its T-levels programme, which was announced
just before Christmas? That is much appreciated. Ferndown Upper
School has made enormous progress over recent years under
excellent leadership and has expanded its numbers accordingly. If
we were able to see an equivalent increase in the quality of
careers guidance in schools across the country, we would all be
absolutely delighted.
Let me turn to the response to the Westminster Hall debate from
the Minister for Higher and Further Education. She said:
“The foundation of making that a reality is careers guidance in
our secondary schools.”
She went on to say:
“That is why we are strengthening the legal framework so that
every secondary pupil is guaranteed access to high-quality,
independent careers guidance. Careers guidance, in itself, is not
the panacea; the quality is absolutely crucial.”—[Official
Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 224WH.]
How will we ensure that we have that quality, which we are told
will increasingly be assessed by Ofsted, if it is going to be
constrained? If Ofsted goes to a school and says, “Your provision
is not of sufficiently good quality”, the school will be able to
say, “Under the guidance—under the existing legislation—we think,
or the person giving the advice thinks, that that is the right
advice to be given for this child,” and there is no objective
test. If the provider thinks that what it has done is correct,
there is no possible way of criticising that or exercising any
sanctions against it. That is why removing these words is of
absolute importance if the Government want to deliver much better
quality careers guidance in our schools. That is a small but
important point, and I hope that we will get a constructive
response from the Minister. If there is resistance to accepting
the amendment in this place, perhaps it can be considered in the
other place. However, we need to have more than just words about
the importance of good quality; we need to ensure that the
legislation facilitates it.
9.45am
Amendment 2 is more of a probing amendment. It would remove
subsection (5), which removes the application of the 1997 Act for
provisions
“in relation to pupils over compulsory school age”.
As hon. Members know, compulsory school age is up to 16. If the
Bill goes through as it stands, there will be no duty on schools
with a sixth form, for example, to continue to provide careers
guidance. I do not understand why, because although it could be
said that careers guidance is important to enable pupils to
decide their A-level options, even when they are taking those
options and preparing to apply for higher education, they still
need or would benefit from careers guidance. They may be doing,
say, history or English at A-level, which will open up massive
fields of opportunity in higher education and careers, but surely
people who are taking those subjects, which are not obviously
designed to enable them to go on a specific professional path,
could benefit from getting proper guidance in school.
Why does the Minister think that schools with a sixth form should
not be required to continue to provide careers guidance for
pupils who are over 16? I am sure there must be a really good
explanation—as there always must be if the Government have put
forward a proposal to the House—and I look forward to receiving
it from him. If he wants to intervene at this stage, I am very
happy for him so to do, but perhaps he will hold his thunder
until later.
The amendments do not need to be introduced at enormous length.
However, the Bill has cometh before the House and this is an
opportunity for us to explore these two aspects of it in more
depth and with more focus.
(Workington) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ) for his interest in this
important Bill and for focusing the debate on the importance of
good-quality careers guidance. I note that he took interest in
the Westminster Hall debate held by my right hon. Friend the
Member for Tatton (), as I did, and I was happy to
see so many in that debate refer to this Bill. He and I are on
the same page on the importance of good-quality careers guidance,
but I hope to assuage some of his concerns. His points about
consistency are exactly what this Bill seeks to address, in
extending the statutory requirement to provide careers advice to
all state-funded schools and across the entirety of secondary
education. His other point was about the single point of careers
guidance. I am not convinced that that is the answer. Although it
might help with consistency, it may also bake in consistently bad
advice from a single source.
On amendment 1, I take my hon. Friend’s point about removing
subjectivity, but of course the idea of good careers advice is
that it is subjective and depends on many things, which the
Gatsby benchmarks address, such as local labour market
provisions. He will be pleased to know that section 45A of the
Education Act 1997 makes it incumbent on schools to “have regard
to” statutory guidance. The statutory careers guidance, which
continues to be updated by the Minister’s Department, imparts the
need to adhere to the Gatsby benchmarks. On his personal
experience of his daughter’s careers advice, let me say that that
does include addressing the needs of each pupil. The Bill, in
extending the duty and putting all state-funded schools on the
same footing, gives Ofsted the teeth it needs to apply that
statutory guidance and the Gatsby benchmarks to a level playing
field, across the board.
On amendment 2, I think there is a slight misunderstanding as to
what clause 1(5) does, which is to disapply the need to offer
advice on 16 to 18 options to those over 16, for obvious reasons.
The statutory careers guidance to which all schools need to have
regard does include the provision of careers guidance at 16 to
18, and that will remain. This provision disapplies the need to
talk about 16 to 18 options once people get past 16, for fairly
obvious reasons. The Minister may wish to address some of the
points in more detail, but I hope that I have been able to
assuage some of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for
Christchurch. I hope that he will not force the House to decide
on his amendments.
(Chesterfield) (Lab)
Let us start by congratulating the hon. Member for Workington
() on reaching this stage
with his Bill. I fully anticipate that he will ultimately achieve
his aim of aligning academy provision with current
state-maintained provision in the sphere of careers guidance, and
I am pleased to give Labour’s backing for this small but
important Bill. Careers guidance is an important component of any
serious social mobility strategy. For many people, and certainly
for people in my family and other young people I have spoken to
in Chesterfield, careers guidance and work experience are often
the first time that young people really get a chance to put their
head up and start looking into the future.
Mr Speaker
Order. Is the hon. Gentleman making a Third Reading speech or
speaking to the amendments?
Mr Perkins
Am I going to get two different opportunities?
Mr Speaker
Yes.
Mr Perkins
Okay, so I will just speak to the amendments. That will speed us
up nicely. None the less, I thought it was important to give some
background to that point. Let me turn to the amendments tabled by
the hon. Member for Christchurch ( ). I suspect it would not
be a sitting Friday if we did not hear the view from
Christchurch. I have often wondered whether a sitting Friday when
we did not hear what the residents of Christchurch thought would
be followed by a Saturday at all. Today, we have heard their
views on careers guidance.
The hon. Gentleman made a number of significant points, and I
have good news for him. We in the Labour party share his fear
about quality, breadth and objectivity when it comes to
understanding whether provision is of a high standard. I think
his proposed amendment is not necessarily the way to address
that, but several of the Labour amendments to the Skills and
Post-16 Education Bill are. Quality and breadth of provision are
important so that young people have the opportunity to consider a
broad range of alternatives, and some careers guidance may be of
a high standard but lack breadth. Our amendments to the Skills
Bill—they have been supported by Lord Baker and others, and I
hope they will return from the other place—will give the hon.
Member for Workington the opportunity to get the assurances he
seeks about quality and breadth. I look forward to speaking to
the Bill further.
Mr Speaker
Order. If Members wish to speak, it would be helpful if they
stood when the Member who is speaking sits down. I am just trying
to put some names down.
(Hertford and Stortford)
(Con)
Thank you for calling me so early in this debate, Mr Speaker. It
is a pleasure to speak in it, and I congratulate my hon. Friend
the Member for Workington () on bringing this Bill
before the House.
I want to give a little bit of perspective from my own
background. In my maiden speech, I referred to my family
background as moving from workhouse to Westminster. My great
grandmother was born in a workhouse in the east end of London.
She was a foundling and she met my great grandfather in the
Foundling Hospital, so they had very modest beginnings. The
emphasis in the Foundling Hospital was not on a choice of careers
but on set career paths. All the boys who were put into the
Foundling Hospital were trained to become Army bandsmen, and all
the girls were trained to become maternity nurses—midwives. They
did not have a choice in that.
My great grandparents went on to have great careers, in the Army
and as a midwife. They met each other in the hospital, and it
absolutely changed their lives. They had rewarding careers and
their own family, and—workhouse to Westminster—I managed to get
here, for some reason. I think that shows the fundamental need
for a career and a job to make our lives what we want them to be.
That opportunity, which is fundamental to levelling up and
everything that we stand for—
Mr Speaker
Order. I want to be helpful, but Members should be speaking to
amendments to the Bill and not making Third Reading speeches. I
think, unfortunately, you are making one of those, which I would
love to hear later rather than now. If you can speak to the
amendments and what we are dealing with, that would be helpful to
the Chair.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your guidance. On the amendment, I
echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said in
response to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ). I think that the Bill,
as it stands, answers the questions that it seeks to address, so
I support it as it is presented today. But I absolutely agree
with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch—I like to relate
things to personal experience, and I think his daughter’s
experience is very telling. It shows us about the cart and the
horse. If someone has a vision for the future, they need to know
the pathway to get there, so it is important that they have
advice at an early stage. I absolutely take what he says, but I
think that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington has answered
that question.
10.00am
(Heywood and Middleton)
(Con)
I will not speak at great length about the amendments, only to
say that every time my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch
( ) speaks, I always think
that I went to the right university, because like him I am a
graduate of Queen’s College, St Andrews, now Dundee University. I
was interested in the way that he rationalised the idea of moving
to an objective test. He will know that that relies on the man on
the Clapham omnibus being the benchmark as the unified standard
of quality, shall we say. My hon. Friend the Member for
Workington () eloquently made the point
that that could end up baking in that quality.
I can speak only to my own experience. I was dead set throughout
most of my A-levels on being a doctor. I have no scientific
aptitude, but I convinced myself that that was what I was going
to do—
Mr Speaker
Order.
I do apologise, Mr Speaker. We are doing so well today. I have
suddenly got louder—that is good.
It took a tutor who recognised that that might not have been my
best skillset to point me in the right direction, and I am very
glad that she did when she did. It led to a fulfilling career,
with one slight blip when I was elected in 2019. I will not
support the amendment if it is pressed to a vote, but I have a
great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend’s intentions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. You are all going to have to stand if you want to speak,
because I am having to guess here. If people do not want to
speak, can they let their Whip know and at least then I know what
I am working to?
(Clwyd South) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () on bringing his Bill to
this stage, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch
( ) on his amendments. I
have some sympathy with what the latter said about his first
amendment. My own daughter is at university at the moment and she
has found the mentoring skills offered by industrialists to be
extremely helpful. I agree with the spirit of the amendment but,
as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington said, the Bill is
well established and structured, and is sufficient as it
stands.
On the second amendment, I have made recent visits in my
constituency to Ysgol y Grango in Rhos and Ysgol Rhiwabon, and I
have seen how keen students are there to discuss their future
career prospects. The more that we can satisfy that thirst for
knowledge, the better, especially by bringing professionals into
schools to provide their experience.
I respect very much the spirit of the amendments tabled by my
hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, but I feel that the Bill
is sufficient as currently constituted, as my hon. Friend the
Member for Workington said.
(South Ribble)
(Con)
I have made newbie mistake No. 1,273 procedurally, so I am happy
to accept the Bill as it stands and I look forward to speaking on
Third Reading.
(West Bromwich West)
(Con)
I wish to touch briefly on the amendments tabled by my hon.
Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ).
I had not intended to speak in today’s debate because I am
confident that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () will get his Bill through.
My main comment is about ensuring that there are no unintended
consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right
in seeking, through his amendments, to ensure consistency
throughout the piece and the quality of the advice that young
people get. I am slightly concerned, though, because we do not
want to create arbitrary methods that do not take into account
local social and economic needs. As I said on Second Reading in
interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and my
right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (), sometimes the careers advice
provided does not necessarily fall within a strict framework in
respect of the needs of the individual.
The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for
Christchurch are intended to ensure clarity and consistency. He
gave the moving example of his daughter and how careers advice
can have an impact; it is important to make sure we do not allow
ambition to be stifled in any way. It is also important that his
amendments do not have any unintended consequences. My hon.
Friend’s intention in respect of both amendments is clear, but
the issue is what the operational delivery will look like.
I was reassured by the response of my hon. Friend the Member for
Workington to the amendments: he explained what his Bill seeks to
do and how he has worked to address the concerns expressed. That
being said, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins)
said, it would not be a sitting Friday without the wise words of
my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I very much endorse
the intent behind his amendments, but they might be somewhat
wanting in respect of delivery, so I am reluctant to support
them.
(Beaconsfield) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () for long championing all
things education and for standing up for children. I have seen
him, not just in respect of this Bill but on many other
occasions, be a lone voice for children and for opportunities in
education.
I appreciate the issues raised by the amendments. I agree that we
need further scrutiny in that respect and to look into how we can
help to give tailored support to everyone in need. In particular,
clause 1, which extends the careers duty to all pupils to secure
education in all types of state-funded provision—particularly
alternative provision—is excellent, but the amendment talks about
giving advice to all from one set point and I have an issue with
that. We could look at further ways to dig down into a bespoke
way of targeting, perhaps through a funding settlement agreement
that provides a funding incentive for those providers that are
able to get students into an apprenticeship successfully. The
school could get an economic settlement for that in the same way
as applies when students are able to get into university at
sixth-form level.
From my previous work, I have found that alternative provision is
often overlooked—it is often the way in which schools shunt off
students who are more challenging and they are not then given the
support that they need. When I worked in disadvantaged areas and
with schools with low skills, my concern was that children were
being taken out of the main school, put into alternative
provision and then left at 16 with no qualifications, no help, no
skills and no guidance. I appreciate the fact that the Bill and
the amendments are trying to target that inequality.
The nuanced issues raised by the amendments are great but I would
go even further. Clause 1(3), which extends the duty to secure
careers guidance to academies and alternative provision, is
welcome, but I would like to see a way of incentivising schools
to pursue apprenticeships and to stress that they should. Many
schools do not pursue apprenticeships because it takes a lot of
time to liaise with the businesses and with the educational
provider. Schools need an extra financial settlement or incentive
to do it correctly, so we should look at how to move that
forward. I know we are not allowed to discuss that in a debate on
a private Member’s Bill, but I wanted to put that out there as we
are discussing the amendment.
This is a nuanced issue. If things are done correctly, the Bill
could help the levelling-up agenda throughout the UK. This is
where children are falling through the cracks. They are being put
through their paces until they are 16 and then left. They are not
being diagnosed with learning difficulties and they are not being
given careers advice, which would help the most disadvantaged
access the career choices that they need.
I love that the amendments and the Bill are looking at how we
target young people—people younger than 16 to 18. Young people
from a disadvantaged background who have no family member in a
job or career need to be told which A-levels to study. They need
to be told that they need a triple science if they want to do
something science related. If a young person does not come from
that background, they have no idea that that is something they
should be doing. This is a way to give that information to every
child from every background. The immigrant child might be the
only member of the family who speaks English as their first
language. They are trying to navigate the British system and this
kind of careers advice can give them the levelling-up advantage
that they need.
I welcome the Bill and think that we can look further at these
amendments to find a way to make the Bill as sharp and crisp as
we possibly can.
Mr Speaker
If there are no other speakers, I will call the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education ()
You are very kind, Mr Speaker, and it is lovely to be here with
you this Friday morning.
What a very interesting debate we have had on the amendments of
my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ), even if some of our
colleagues have been so anxious to get onto Third Reading. I can
understand why, but we do have a couple of very important
amendments to discuss.
I must declare a small amount of interest: I grew up very close
to my hon. Friend’s constituency. Many is the time that I have
cycled past Ferndown Upper. I am delighted to hear that it is
joining us on the T-level journey, which will help transform the
lives of so many young people who want to have excellent
vocational training as well as qualifications that have been
designed with employers. They want to get that really serious
long-term experience on the job while they are still at school or
in college, knowing that they are getting the skills that the
economy needs. I am absolutely delighted that Ferndown is part of
that journey.
I often think of my hon. Friend when I am reading the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, which is one of my favourite early medieval texts. As
you will know well, Mr Speaker, after King Alfred the Great died,
his nephew, a nobleman, tried to seize the throne. He did so by
starting at Tweoxneam, which is the archaic name for
Christchurch. Whenever I think of that noble rebel of old, my
mind sometimes flits to my noble friend from Christchurch
today.
The thrust of my hon. Friend’s amendments is extremely important,
because it focuses on quality, and the quality of our careers
advice and careers service that we intend to provide young people
is paramount. This was something that was central to a debate on
Tuesday in Westminster Hall, which, sadly, I was unable to
attend. Those present got the Minister of State instead of the
mere Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, so they benefited
from my absence.
The work that we are doing in the Department for Education
centres on this very important issue of quality, and there are a
number of changes that we have introduced, and are introducing,
on that score. One key thing the Secretary of State has done is
commission Sir John Holman to undertake a review of careers
advice in the round, not just for young people, but for adults
and those furthest from the workplace. I met Sir John yesterday.
His work is coming along extremely well. We are looking forward
to getting the formal findings of his report in the summer. We
are also seeing accelerated progress in schools and colleges of
the enterprise adviser—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think the Minister is almost in danger of doing his
Third Reading speech. This is about the amendments—whether we do
or do not support them and where we are going with them. I think
Members would like to hear this speech in the Third Reading
debate rather than now.
Absolutely, Mr Speaker. The thrust of my hon. Friend’s amendments
is about quality in the careers service, which is very much where
I was trying to go in my remarks. I will speed ahead to the
specifics, and perhaps we will come back to the general points on
Third Reading.
Given the challenges that young people have faced throughout the
pandemic, there has never been a more important time to help them
plan for the future with confidence. That is why, as I say, we
are focusing on quality. That said, the two amendments that my
hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has tabled, however well
intentioned, are unnecessary.
10.15am
Amendment 1 would amend the duty on the responsible authorities.
We all agree that independent careers guidance must promote the
best interests of the pupil, but this amendment seeks to take
away the responsibility for determining the best interests of the
pupil from the person who gives the careers guidance to pupils,
and would instead place that responsibility on schools. I believe
it is important that the person who gives the careers guidance
determines the pupil’s best interest by applying their own
judgment as to the suitability of the guidance for the pupils. In
their role, they will be best placed to understand the needs of
those pupils when delivering careers guidance. The key point is
that schools must secure careers guidance that is independent of
the school: if schools become responsible for determining whether
the guidance is in the best interest of the pupils, that
independence could be affected. In many cases, for example, the
school will bring in a qualified careers adviser to deliver
independent careers guidance to pupils. Careers advisers are
specifically trained to act impartially and—crucially—in the best
interests of the pupil, such as the daughter of my hon. Friend
the Member for Christchurch.
Turning to amendment 2, the Bill seeks to exempt 16 to
18-year-olds from the provision of guidance on options available
for 16 to 18 education or training, including apprenticeships.
That guidance is thought to be unnecessary, as 16 to 18-year-olds
who are not in compulsory schooling will have already chosen
their post-16 options. If we adopted this amendment, schools
would be obliged to provide 16 to 18-year-olds with guidance on
post-16 education or training options, which might simply waste
their time and schools’ resources. In fact, that exemption—it
must be noted—is already in force through the Careers Guidance in
Schools Regulations 2013, so the Bill simply seeks to move what
we have previously had in guidance into primary legislation: it
is more of a tidying-up exercise. Other aspects of those
regulations will not be needed, as the Bill will seek to make the
duty apply to all secondary-age pupils.
I thank all Members on both sides of the House who have
contributed today, and look forward to continuing the debate on
Third Reading.
I much appreciate the Minister’s comments, and his
exemplification of the importance of Christchurch—of Tweoxneam—in
the history of our country. I am glad that he is so well read in
his subjects and knows the locality. I am sure that that had
nothing to do with the decision to award this money to Ferndown
Upper School, but nevertheless, it is very much appreciated.
I accept what the Minister says about amendment 2—it was very
much a probing amendment. However, I invite him to reflect
further on amendment 1, because at the moment the Bill says
that
“The responsible authorities must secure that careers guidance
provided under subsection (1)…is guidance that the person giving
it considers will promote the best interests of the pupils to
whom it is given.”
Surely, the school should be taking the responsibility for
ensuring that the careers guidance that is provided promotes the
best interests of pupils. The Minister did not really address the
points that I was making about the number of schools that are not
complying with any of the eight Gatsby guidance principles.
My hon. Friend is right about the one in five schools, but allow
me to turn that figure on its head: from a standing start really
quite a short time ago, four in five schools are now complying
with large numbers of the Gatsby benchmarks, and are improving.
Our Ofsted regime will include adherence to those benchmarks in
its handbook, and I remind my hon. Friend that as part of our
post-covid work, all schools will be inspected by Ofsted between
now and summer 2025. As far as we are concerned, this is a
genuine accountability measure.
I appreciate that, but one in five schools is not complying with
any of the eight Gatsby principles that I read out, so surely we
need to take action sooner than on the timescale to which the
Minister refers. That is not a matter for legislation—his
Department needs to get a grip on it. If schools are not
complying with the basic principles set out in Gatsby, why is
that, and why are they not being held to account?
I return to amendment 1. If a school transfers responsibility for
careers guidance that is in the best interests of pupils to a
provider who gets it wrong, there is no way in which that school
can be held to account for having chosen a duff provider. The
school will always be able to say in defence, to an Ofsted
inspector, for example, that the provider thought that it was
working in the best interests of the pupil to whom guidance was
being given.
indicated dissent.
The Minister shakes his head, but if the Bill retains the
phrase
“the person giving it considers”,
surely we are accepting a subjective test rather than an
objective one. I will give way again to the Minister.
I was not seeking to intervene, but I am glad to take the
opportunity. Ofsted would obviously hold the school accountable
for procuring poor careers advice. I very much appreciate my hon.
Friend’s point, but, to be clear, we take accountability for
careers advice very seriously and we wish to drive up quality. We
believe that it is in the best interests of the pupil to have
independent careers guidance in schools where possible, from
independent careers advisers who act, and are trained to act, in
the best interests of pupils. I hope he will appreciate that we
are working towards the aims that he sets out. It is a serious
measure to have reference to Gatsby in the Ofsted handbook and a
programme to inspect all schools against it, and I hope that no
one will make light of that.
I much appreciate that full intervention to further clarify the
Government’s intentions. In the end, the proof of the pudding
will be in the eating. We will have to see whether we get the
improved quality in careers guidance that everyone in the House
wants and on which the Government and Opposition are united.
I thank the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) for his
comments. I do not always get compliments from the Opposition,
but I much appreciate them and take them to heart, as indeed I do
the support that I have received from my hon. Friends. They are
waiting to deliver their Third Reading speeches, but they
nevertheless had a good formula for commenting on the amendments,
which was basically, “My hon. Friend the Member for Workington
() has got it right and we do
not need to comment any further.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Workington has worked hard on the
Bill and it is great that he has given us an opportunity to raise
these issues and focus on quality. He echoes what the Minister
said about the amendments being unnecessary. I will not put the
amendments to a vote, so let us hope that they prove to be
unnecessary. We will have to see whether the good intentions
materialise. For that reason, I once again express my
appreciation to all hon. Members who have contributed to this
short debate, and to the Minister in particular, and I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Third Reading
10.25am
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am delighted to present the Bill to the House for its Third
Reading. It heralds a sea change in how we prepare the next
generation to meet the career challenges that lie ahead. It will
serve to embed careers advice throughout the secondary phase of
education through the provision of regular and ongoing support
for students every step of the way. In short, it is designed to
give our young people the best start and to maximise their
opportunities.
I am delighted that, through the Bill, I will make a positive
difference to the lives of young people in my Workington
constituency and across England. As a father of four, it is an
issue that is close to my heart. The changes that the Bill will
help to bring about are important and overdue, and I have no
doubt that its effects will be positive and far-reaching.
At present, the statutory duty to provide careers guidance falls
on maintained schools, special schools and pupil referral units
but not academies. The Bill seeks to address that anomaly by
placing the same requirement on all types of state-funded
secondary schools, which will help to create a level playing
field. I hope that that will encourage a culture where young
people, regardless of social background, can advance through
merit and hard work.
It is essential that the advice available to our young people is
consistent, of the highest quality and accessible to everyone. As
a blue-collar Conservative from a working-class community, I am a
staunch believer in the value of meritocracy. The standard of
careers guidance should not be a postcode lottery—we cannot leave
the education of the next generation to chance—and must be based
on a set of clear principles that are clearly focused on the best
interests of children.
It is also important to develop a more joined-up system in which
careers advisers, education providers and employers work together
to share information and signpost young people to the
opportunities available. I know how frightening it can be for a
young person to make momentous and life-changing decisions about
his or her future career, and that process becomes even more
stressful if they are not in possession of the information that
they need to make the choices that work for them.
In previous stages of the Bill, I joked that I am 39 and remain
undecided about what I want to be when I grow up. At the end of
the month, I will hit the big four-o and I am even less decided
than I was. On a more serious note, it is easy for young people
to find themselves on the wrong path or facing the wrong
direction, and without the proper guidance, the risk of that
happening becomes even greater.
That is why it is important to give our young people the best
careers advice we can at the earliest opportunity. Such a crucial
decision cannot be determined on the basis of an occasional
meeting, but must be part of a long-term process that is
continually reviewed in the light of changes in the labour market
and the child, and of the developing aspirations of the young
people themselves.
(Leeds North West)
(Lab/Co-op)
I very much welcome the hon. Member’s Bill and the speech that he
is giving. Careers advice has come on a long way in the last 50
years. I am sure that we all remember the scene in “Kes” where my
constituent, the former lord mayor of Leeds, Bernard Atha, played
the careers teacher who gave Billy and all the boys and girls in
the school exactly the same careers advice. Although that was a
drama, it reflected what happened in the sort of communities that
we represent.
The quality of careers guidance depends on the person giving it.
We have NVQs at levels 4, 5, 6 and even 7 in higher education for
careers guidance, so it is a profession in and of itself. It is
not just an add-on or to be left to online quizzes, but that is
what has happened to my child at school, so there is still a long
way to go. We need to professionalise careers guidance and see it
as something in and of itself, not just an add-on.
Mr Speaker
Order. I think the hon. Member knows that an intervention is not
meant to be a speech. You can speak—I will put you on the
list—there is no problem there.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for making
that important point. I will talk later about funded bursaries
and the training that is available for careers leaders, and will
explain how the Minister’s Department is putting careers leader
training at the forefront of careers advice. We cannot abandon
our children to the whims of fortune without a map, a compass or
a torch to light the way.
The Bill is particularly timely given the disruption and
disorientation caused by covid-19. It is hardly surprising that
young people are worried about their education and employment
prospects in these unprecedented times. Uncertainty and change
inevitably fuel anxiety, and covid-19 has forced many young
people to reconsider their options and look again at their career
paths.
As I said in my earlier speech, unexpected change and challenges
are not necessarily bad. They can open new doors, and encourage
us to be adaptable in our goals and innovative in our approaches.
Difficult experiences can help us to see new opportunities that
we may not have considered before, bringing out latent talents
and teaching us new skills. However, the support structures and
safety nets must be in place to help young people. It is
incumbent upon us—indeed, it is our duty—to help our children to
negotiate these obstacles and to encourage them when they lose
their way, or, even worse, lose faith in themselves.
In my constituency, as in others across England, there are
pockets of deprivation, unemployment and sometimes, I have to
say, hopelessness. I am acutely aware of the stark disadvantages
faced by so many young people. They have so much to contribute,
but so often they are written off too soon. If we are serious
about “levelling up”—if it is to be more than just a slogan or a
soundbite—giving all children access to good-quality careers
advice is one of the most important weapons in our fight against
poverty and despair. We must leave no child behind.
Providing this enhanced careers education and guidance makes
economic sense too, as it will contribute to a high-skills and
high-productivity recovery. The Bill will help all young people
to develop the skills and attributes that will enable them to
succeed in the workplace, and in some cases it will nurture the
community leaders of the future.
Mr Perkins
As the hon. Gentleman has already heard, we support the aims of
his Bill. He has spoken of giving every child access to
good-quality careers guidance. Does he agree that that must
involve face-to-face conversations? It is not good enough to say,
“Do it on the internet.” We need to ensure that every child can
sit down with a careers professional.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, and for making an
important point that takes us back to the point made earlier by
the hon. Member for Leeds North West () about trained careers leaders.
We must ensure that there is face-to-face careers guidance,
rather than children being plonked in front of a computer to
figure out their own paths.
The Bill extends careers advice down from the current year 8 to
year 7 to ensure that children are given the information they
need to make the best possible choices at the earliest juncture.
The sooner we can provide children with careers options, the
sooner we can address some of the gender, class and other work
stereotypes that are already starting to bed in. The Bill also
brings academies into line with local authority-controlled
schools, ensuring that everyone has the same opportunity
regardless of their postcode. As we know, some academies are not
statutorily bound but are bound by their funding agreements,
while others are subject to no requirements at all. The Bill
gives Ofsted the tools that it needs to guarantee that our
children benefit from first-rate careers advice throughout their
school careers and across the country.
As a direct result of the Bill, approximately 650,000 year 7
pupils across England will become entitled to independent careers
guidance, and we are bringing 2,700 academies into scope. The
Bill puts into statute the Government’s commitment in the “Skills
for jobs” White Paper for the UK's post-pandemic recovery. It
builds on the important work that is already being done
nationally to develop a coherent and well-established careers
system—a sector in which Cumbria is a leading light.
As Members will know, the Government are already committed to the
national roll-out of careers hubs, and have taken action to
support the careers of young people through schemes such as
kickstart. As I said earlier, the Careers & Enterprise
Company is increasing young people’s exposure to the world of
work, and helping schools and colleges to deliver world-class
careers guidance for their students in line with the Gatsby
benchmarks. The National Careers Service provides careers
information, advice and guidance through a website and a
telephone helpline. More than 3,300 business professionals are
now working as enterprise advisers with schools and colleges,
doing a lot of the face-to-face guidance that strengthens
employer links with schools. The result is that 3.3 million young
people are now having regular encounters with employers, up 70%
in just two years.
Education providers, training providers and careers services in
my Workington constituency continue to rise to the challenge in
the face of often large socioeconomic challenges. The Cumbria
careers hub was launched in January 2019 to deliver the
Government’s careers strategy for Cumbria after the local
enterprise partnership’s skills investment plan identified a
significant challenge in developing skills in our county.
The process is accelerating, with 100% of schools in the hub
matched with an enterprise adviser from a pool of senior business
volunteers. It has been successfully replicated across the
country, with 45% of secondary schools and colleges now in
careers hubs. We are seeing rapid improvements in hubs, with
disadvantaged areas among the best performers. The link between
careers and career pathways is essential for developing and
attracting talent to Cumbria, owing to the area’s declining
working-age population, and their success is to be
celebrated.
It is therefore critical that we nurture homegrown talent by
giving young people the skills and confidence they need to make
the most of the opportunities within a forward-looking global
Britain, to help close the skills gaps in areas like Cumbria and
to attract investment. It is simply not enough to nurture talent;
we must also work to retain it and attract it. Furthermore,
careers advice, in line with the Gatsby benchmarks, must be
tailored to the jobs market in a local area, which is why
conversations and relationships between employers, schools and
careers advisers are so important. This Bill ensures that those
channels of communication are built upon. The Bill helps to
ensure young people are aware of the opportunities that lie on
their doorstep, as well as those that exist further afield. Young
people often tell us that one of the biggest barriers is not
knowing what careers exist.
Simplifying the current system whereby careers duties are imposed
on secondary schools by a combination of statutory provisions and
contractual arrangements, while there are no requirements
whatsoever on some of the older academies, is an important part
of this Bill. The importance of extending the careers duty to all
secondary pupils cannot be overstated. Extending the duty to all
academies and alternative provision academies places the same
requirements and standards on all types of state-funded schools,
which puts all state-funded secondary pupils on a level footing
and gives Ofsted the tools it needs.
We need to start setting out to children, as soon as possible,
the options that will be available to them—not just sixth form
and university but further education, apprenticeships, T-levels
and other technical education qualifications. The earlier our
young people start to consider these options and receive the
appropriate guidance, the greater their chance of making the best
possible choice.
University technical colleges—I have a fantastic one in my
constituency—form an important part of the offer, but that could
mean changing schools at 14. This option should not be put in
front of a child at 13. It should be talked about from a much
earlier age. Although it is important that young people are aware
of their options, the last thing we want is for them to get to
year 9 and feel like options are being imposed on them or, worse
still, are non-existent, which is why flexibility must also be
built into the guidance.
Engaging with employers from an early age can inspire young
people and help them relate to the career opportunities to which
their circumstances, abilities and interests are suited. The Bill
recognises and makes use of the work already undertaken as part
of the national careers system and, more importantly, it
continues to raise young people’s aspirations through regular and
meaningful engagement with employers and workplaces.
Having spoken in depth with education providers, parents and
guardians, careers advisers, employers and, most importantly,
young people themselves, I am more convinced than ever that this
Bill will help to unlock the potential of generations to come. It
is difficult to imagine a more worthy cause than to give our
children the confidence and skills they need to be able to fulfil
their dreams.
I am grateful to everyone who has worked on the Bill and helped
to shape it. Their research, knowledge and observations have been
invaluable and have created something that will serve our young
people well. This Bill is about helping young people navigate
through obstacles and avoid blind alleys, and it will prevent
them from ending up in a career cul-de-sac.
We spend so much of our lives at work, so it is paramount that we
give our young people the tools to find employment that is worth
while and fulfilling. It is not simply about boosting the
economy; it is also about wellbeing and helping to foster a
culture of personal growth and aspiration from the starting line.
More fundamentally, it is about creating a fairer system across
our education system that allows everyone to realise their
potential and make the best contribution possible to their
communities, wherever they live and whatever their
background.
10.39am
Mr Perkins
I would like to repeat my congratulations to the hon. Member for
Workington () on reaching this stage
with his Bill. I think it is a very valuable thing that he is
doing with the private Member’s Bill allocation that he
successfully won. I think he is absolutely right to express the
importance of careers guidance, particularly in communities where
opportunities are not necessarily plentiful and people need to
have an opportunity to see different kinds of careers from those
that their parents have enjoyed and that others in their school
previously have enjoyed.
For all the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has outlined, we
entirely agree that ensuring that every student, whether they be
at an academy school or a state maintained school, can avail
themselves of a minimum standard of careers guidance is a
necessary provision. We know that many schools already have
excellent provision and constructive, successful and
transformational relationships with employers, but there is a
real lack of consistency across the board, and anything that sets
out to consolidate and improve that provision across schools
should be welcomed.
I have to say that it would be impossible to debate careers
provision as an MP who was elected in 2010—as I am—without
stopping for a moment to lament the vandalism to careers
education that took place under the 2010 to 2015 coalition
Government. The Minister said that the Government had done well
from a standing start, and goodness me, wasn’t it a standing
start? The reality is that, between 2010 and 2015, the Government
almost deliberately set out to set fire to careers provision such
as it was. I think there were legitimate questions about the
effectiveness of the Connexions service, but it was scrapped
without any serious replacement and then Ministers celebrated—in
preparing for this Bill, I looked back at some of the debates we
were having in 2010—that the £200 million saved by shutting
Connexions would prevent further cuts to the schools budget. It
was really an extraordinary approach that, as I say, was an act
of vandalism that left a whole generation of schoolchildren
without careers provision. I am glad to hear from the hon.
Gentleman that this idea is now utterly rejected.
Just on the point of the 2010 changes, I was working in schools
at that time and I would like to point out that there was an
emphasis on apprenticeships and skills, and moving toward
students for the first time being put into jobs. I organised
apprenticeship fairs, and I worked with schools that for the
first time were actually trying to help children in low
educational attainment areas to find careers. I found that the
challenge, while we were there promoting apprenticeships, was
that the schools only wanted to send children to university. So I
do believe that the 2010 shift was a positive shift towards
apprenticeships and skills.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. Interventions should be quite short and a question.
Mr Perkins
The thing that the hon. Member sets out that is welcome is this
shift—[Interruption] if she would listen to me—towards
apprenticeships. I entirely support that, but I think that
getting rid of professional careers advice and moving to a “let
the schools decide” model actually did the opposite of that. I
think it meant that the rather narrow environment that sometimes
exists in schools became the very prevalent one, and I am going
to reflect on that in more detail.
As I was saying, the Government’s approach was born of an idea
that careers guidance could be provided by a child’s parents or
their parent’s networks. Young Jonny could go and do a week in
the City with his father’s firm. It bore no relation to the
reality of what that meant to children whose parents did not have
those networks. It was a move that kept children in their place,
with work experience becoming voluntary or something additional
for schools to do, rather than an integral part of supporting
children to leave our schools ready for the world of work.
The Bill is narrow in scope, but it is an opportunity to discuss
what the Government’s commitment to the nation’s young people and
employers should be. As the hon. Member for Workington expressed,
as is often the case, much of the Bill will end up being what is
in the guidance, rather than what is on the face of the Bill. It
is an opportunity for the Government to ensure that they put in
place the mechanisms to make the rhetoric about quality and
breadth a reality.
Labour believes very strongly that every child should be able to
expect quality work experience that opens their horizons and is
assessed not just on whether they are safe, but on whether it
helps them to experience the wonderful world of work. That means
much more than what many of us as parents have seen with our own
children, which is a letter home from school saying, “Work
experience fortnight is coming up. Go and sort it out and get the
employer to fill out this form, so we can assure ourselves that
no one is going to die while they are away from the school.” It
is about much more than safety. Work experience should not just
be “go to work with mum or dad week”, which is what it so often
is around the country. The milkman’s son helps his dad on the
milk round for a week, while my lad sits in my office upstairs
helping an MP. All that happens is that children repeat the
experiences they have been hearing about around the breakfast
table for the previous 15 years.
I therefore welcome the fact that my right hon. and learned
Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras () has sought to go further,
announcing a bold offer that will be introduced by the next
Labour Government. It will include the equivalent of two weeks’
worth of compulsory work experience to connect young people with
local employers and build the skills needed for work, ensuring
that every child has access to quality careers advice in their
school by giving every school access to a professional careers
adviser once a week.
One crucial point made earlier is that careers guidance is a
profession. It is not an add-on to the deputy headteacher’s job,
but a career in its own right that needs respecting. There are
many fantastic teachers and school leaders, but often their
horizons and experiences are narrow. Many people have been
schoolchildren, university students, and then schoolteachers and
school leaders. How is that an appropriate background to lead
careers guidance? We need people with a breadth of understanding
of the many different careers out there. How likely is someone
with that kind of background to introduce children to the
multitude of different opportunities and alternative paths that
follow post-school?
The point the hon. Member for Beaconsfield () just made is very
important. If the experience in many schools has only been going
to school, university and then back to school, and if those
schools feel that Ofsted wants to judge them on the number of
people who go to university, then of course if we put school
leaders in charge of careers guidance we should not be surprised
if that guidance ends up being, “Get yourself into our sixth form
and stay there; don’t look at apprenticeships or any of that.” I
agree with her point.
In defending the abolition of professional careers guidance back
in 2013, said in another place:
“That is why we gave responsibility for securing careers guidance
to schools. They know their pupils best and can tailor provision
to their individual needs.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4
March 2013; Vol. 743, c. 1268.]
What happened was precisely what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield
says. Some schools carried on providing a great service, but in
many cases schools got as many pupils as possible into their
sixth forms, perhaps because they wanted to stuff their sixth
form with students or perhaps because they did not have the
experience to know what other opportunities were out there. There
was an idea prevalent at the time that it was all about
university and that apprenticeships were a second-rate option.
That is very much not the approach the Labour party takes.
What Lord Nash’s advice meant in practice was that for many
children careers guidance and work experience all but
disappeared. The legacy of that disastrous approach was that even
before the pandemic almost 800,000 young people were NEET—not in
education, employment or training. The Government now say—I am
sure they are right, because I hear the same thing—that employers
tell them that too many young people leave our academic
institutions unready for the world of work. We welcome the fact
that the hon. Member for Workington is attempting to work with
Government to address some of those mistakes and the missed
opportunities that previous Administrations have been responsible
for. He has our full support, as do the Government. We think that
the Bill is a useful first step in ensuring that we have adequate
careers guidance for school-age pupils.
From the perspective of the Minister’s response to the
amendments, we very much agree that the Bill is a standing start,
but we think that the Government need to go further. As he knows,
we proposed a number of amendments, and supported amendments from
the other place, during the passage of the Skills and Post-16
Education Bill that would have done precisely that.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South () said in the House earlier
this week, according to Parentkind’s “Parent Voice Report 2021”,
just half of parents believe that their school offers good
careers advice. As has been mentioned, the CBI survey in 2019
said that 44% of employers felt that young people were leaving
education not work-ready. It is vital that children and young
people receive the highest quality of independent and impartial
careers guidance, setting out the full array of opportunities
available to them.
As many hon. Members will be aware, the Labour party recently
supported the Baker clause during the passage of the Skills and
Post-16 Education Bill, and, as that Bill returns from another
place, we will continue to advocate for Ministers to adopt such a
rigorous approach to careers guidance to ensure that young people
have the opportunity to access it from a range of sources. It is
a real shame that the Government removed the Baker clause in
another place and in Committee in this House, because it has real
value.
All too often, an academic route has been the default option put
forward to pupils. Of course, that is a worthwhile endeavour for
those seeking to undertake further academic qualifications. We in
the Opposition salute and celebrate our universities as a huge
national strength and asset, but it is crucial that vocational
opportunities are available for all, not just those who do not go
to university. They should be seen not as a secondary option for
those who choose not to go to university, but as something for
A-grade students to consider, too.
It is important that all students are aware of the full range of
options open to them. That is why we think there is real merit in
ensuring that a range of organisations and institutions get the
opportunity to go into schools and engage with pupils throughout
their school journey, and that Ofsted rigorously investigates the
careers provision at school and ensures that all pupils are aware
of the range of options that might be suitable for them. It has
been suggested that no school that has poor careers provision
should get an “Outstanding” from Ofsted, and that that idea has
real merit. If a school’s careers provision is poor, how can its
overall education be seen as outstanding?
In my Front-Bench role, I regularly meet and visit companies
across all sectors of our economy that have incredible
apprenticeship programmes for young people. Too many young
people, however, have no idea what an apprenticeship is or any
belief that they would be able to access one, and have no idea
how they can progress through a technical route. We believe that
apprenticeships should be the gold standard for vocational and
technical education. We are exploring ways to extend
apprenticeship opportunities, particularly among those aged under
25.
We very much welcome the Bill’s central purpose— to ensure that
academy provision is held to the same expectations as
state-funded schools—but it will be interesting to hear what the
Minister has to say about what that means for the freedoms that
academies enjoy. Those of us who were here in 2010 can still
remember the messianic zeal with which the right hon. Member for
Surrey Heath () extolled the freedoms that
schools that converted to academy status would enjoy.
Labour’s approach at the last general election was to say not
that all academies should convert back into being under local
authority control, but that parental expectations and
accountability should be the same whether the children are
educated in an academy or in a state-maintained school. The Bill
seeks, in the sphere of careers guidance, to impose exactly that
kind of responsibility on academies, and we welcome that. That is
a departure from the approach the Government have taken
previously with the majority of schools that were moving to
academy status.
It would be good to hear from the Minister about where the
balance now lies between Government-imposed expectations on
academies, and the freedoms that academies can expect to enjoy.
We rather prefer that sort of approach, but it is a departure
from what the Government have previously said about academies. It
would be good to hear a little from the Government about whether
that signals a wider change of approach on the balance between
freedoms and guidance.
In conclusion, the Bill is a welcome first step, but it by no
means resolves the damage done over the past decade of Tory
failures and inaction on careers guidance. I am happy to say that
Labour believes the Government’s position is now better than it
was in the past. We will continue to push them to go further, but
we think there are steps in the right direction for careers
guidance. I hope that in the spirit of cross-party co-operation,
Conservative Members will look favourably on Labour’s amendment
to the Bill in the coming weeks, as it enters Report and Third
Reading and comes back from another place.
10.56am
(Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
I was fortunate to speak in the Westminster Hall debate earlier
in the week, and given the time constraints I will confine my
comments to an area of careers guidance that I think has not been
covered, and will not be covered by other Members. I congratulate
my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () on introducing this
important Bill.
We must recognise that during their lifetime most, if not all,
young people will experience a period of self-employment, either
running a business or contracting out their services. That trend
is even more pronounced since the pandemic, with the number of
new businesses started in the UK increasing by 14% in the first
year of the pandemic. However, the skill set needed for
self-employment and entrepreneurship is not taught in most
schools. It is estimated that one in four Brits operate at least
one side business alongside their day job, contributing an
estimated £72 billion to the UK economy, and highlighting the
importance of equipping young people with the skills they need to
take the leap.
The journey starts in school, and research from the National
Association of School and University Entrepreneurs has found that
73% of young entrepreneurs agree that the skills required to
start and run a business can be taught. Many are in favour of
teaching entrepreneurship in schools as an integral part of every
college course that leads to a qualification that is preparation
for self-employment, whether that is a course in hairdressing,
catering or plumbing.
We must also more closely align our school core curriculum with
the realities of the modern world of work. Robots, artificial
intelligence, and automation are no longer reserved for science
fiction movies, and they represent a fundamental shift in the
skills our workforce need to improve productivity and compete in
the modern globalised world. For example, research from McKinsey
shows that 51% of job activities are highly susceptible to
automation. We must increase our focus on what we are doing to
prepare future generations to thrive in that changing landscape.
Young people must be prepared with creative, collaborative and
digital problem-solving skills for the future. The Government are
right to recognise computer science as part of the core
curriculum, but we must invest more to improve uptake and recruit
teachers with the required skills. That is just one step we need
to take to ensure that our schools teach the right curriculum for
the future and not the past.
The two biggest employers in my constituency are the
NHS—Stoke-on-Trent has a teaching hospital—and Bet365. One might
not think that they have much in common as employers, but the NHS
and the world’s largest online betting company are both dependant
on digital platforms. The city council is right to have launched
a prospectus called Silicon Stoke, which illustrates our
understanding of and aspiration to harness digital innovation as
a key driver for our economic success as a city. Schools have a
duty to understand the way the world of work is heading. It is
absolutely right that we have independent advice and guidance. I
fully support all the intentions of the Bill, and I do believe it
is absolutely necessary. On Tuesday, people reflected on their
own experience of careers guidance, so I would like to share
mine. I went to a state grammar school, where they just said,
“You’re okay, you can go to university.” So I did not actually
think about what I was going to be. It has taken me 65 years to
achieve my full potential, so I am glad to be standing here today
supporting this Bill.
11.00am
(Bracknell) (Con)
It is a great privilege to be called so early in this debate,
Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me start by commending my hon. Friend
the Member for Workington () for this excellent Bill. I
am a huge fan of careers advice in schools. He has done some
great work since he has been in Parliament and this Bill is
absolutely the right thing to do, so my congratulations to him
for getting it through today.
I was at school once, believe it or not, many years ago. I was in
a very good school in Guildford. I was probably a lost cause for
most of it, but one reason why I scraped through was that it had
a careers office. It was fantastic because it was a warm office
in the old part of the school, there were lots of leaflets and
newspapers in there, and it was where the students and the kids
used to hang out when they were hiding from the headteacher. The
important thing is that it was led by a chap called Mr Richard
Mant, who was a very inspirational teacher. At the age of 11 or
12, I was absolutely inspired by him, and by the leaflets and
articles I read in that careers office, and I went through my
school years with an idea and a vision of what I wanted to do
when I left school. Children who are exposed to that at the right
age, from year 7, in accordance with the Bill, are at a massive
advantage, because it sows the seed of what they might want to do
later in life. As Steve Jobs proved so ably, if someone has a
vision, they then bend their entire focus, hard work and work
ethic into achieving it. Children being exposed at an early age
to the whole panoply of what they might want to do when they grow
up is really important. They may wish to be an accountant, Army
officer, lawyer, politician, apprentice or electrician. It does
not matter what someone wants to do, because all work is vital
and valuable, but instilling that vision from year 7 is
absolutely the right thing to do, and I once again commend my
hon. Friend for his Bill.
I know that time is short, but I wish to use my last minute or so
to commend the education provision in my constituency, which is
fantastic. I have had the privilege over the past two years of
visiting most of the schools in the constituency, both primary
and secondary. The figures are amazing: 23 of the 26 schools in
my constituency are graded “good” or “outstanding”. The education
offer in Bracknell is fantastic, which is testament not just to
the excellent education department at Bracknell Forest Council,
led by Gareth Barnard but to the fantastic teachers and
headteachers we have in the constituency. There is not a bad
apple among them, and the offer is absolutely brilliant. Do I
think this Bill would work in Bracknell? Yes, I do, 100%. Most of
the schools there already have careers provision and excellent
careers staff, but instilling this in law and compelling teachers
and schools to provide it in year 7 is a brilliant thing to do.
Kids in Bracknell, who already are very blessed with superb
education, will benefit from this and, we hope, will aspire to
great things as they grow up.
11.03am
(Hastings and Rye)
(Con)
I know that time is short, so I will keep my comments brief. I
wish to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for
Workington () on introducing this
important Bill, which is now before us in its remaining stages.
Giving every child the best start in life is a guiding principle
of this Government’s approach to education here in England. Every
child needs to have access to equal opportunity, and a good
education is part of the vital armoury in ensuring that, building
the foundations they need—confidence, resilience and
commitment—to thrive in adult life. As we have heard from many
Members in the debate on this subject last autumn and today,
education is not just about reading, writing and maths—academic
training. Schools can help children to develop their social
relationships, emotional skills, identity and all-round
wellbeing. Academic or cognitive development is essential, but
so, too, is careers guidance and support in order for a child to
take full advantage of the opportunities available to them. We
need an education system that not only focuses on academic or
technical training but guides and supports children on their
future career path. Good career guidance is a vital key to social
mobility, and it is about showing young people, whatever their
family or social backgrounds, the options open to them, helping
them make the right choices for them and setting them on the path
to a rewarding future.
I also want to highlight the need for more people from a variety
of careers and a business background to come into our schools and
talk to our young people about their careers. We might have to
look at some kind of voluntary umbrella organisation in order to
really encourage people to take that step. There is no doubt that
careers advice and support is crucial, and the Bill will see that
such advice is offered independently to all pupils from year 7
onwards.
I will not dwell on the intricacies of the Bill, but I highlight
the fact that the Department for Education is supporting a range
of measures to ensure that all students choose a career that is
right for them, including the Baker clause, which stipulates that
all schools and academies must publish a policy statement setting
out opportunities for providers of technical education courses
and apprenticeships to visit schools to talk to all pupils and to
make sure that the policy is followed. The “Skills for Jobs”
White Paper aims to improve compliance with the Baker clause
through the introduction of a three-point plan, by creating
minimum legal requirements and taking more action to enforce
compliance. The White Paper, coupled with the Bill, could
transform the way in which we provide careers advice and guidance
to young people across England.
I am delighted that East Sussex College in Hastings was part of
the successful Sussex-wide application under the skills
accelerator programme for a joint local skills improvement plan
and strategic development fund pilot. I have been listening in to
some of the LSIP virtual meetings to go through the various
areas, including manufacturing and engineering, and it is
fascinating to see the research and evidence that they have built
up.
The “Skills for Jobs” White Paper sets out the Government’s
blueprint for reshaping the technical skills system to better
support the needs of the local labour market and the wider
economy, and the skills accelerator is a core part of delivering
that. The Bill will go a long way in supporting students with the
advice and guidance they need to make reasoned and timely
decisions to help them into the world of work. I thank my hon.
Friend the Member for Workington for bringing forward his Bill,
because this is such an important aspect of education.
11.07am
(Dudley North) (Con)
I was really delighted to learn that the Government agree with my
hon. Friend the Member for Workington () that parity is needed
across all secondary and further education providers in giving
our youngsters the best possible start in life.
My constituency has produced a lot of talent—many amazing
people—over the centuries. In fact, it was the birthplace of the
industrial revolution. Now, however, it has a much higher
proportion of challenges, with young people not in education,
permanently excluded and not in employment. But Dudley has the
ability to find a way, and it is doing so. Even though in recent
years the council has had some difficult challenges to overcome
with its own education department, Dudley has resilience and an
innovative way of getting round problems. I have mentioned before
in the House the Priory Park boxing club, which has been helping
kids who have been excluded from mainstream education. Too often,
such children are written off by our society.
Much like the Government, Paul Gough, who runs the club, has said
that enough is enough and change is needed—no more talking shops
but action. With the support of the council leader, Councillor
Patrick Harley, Paul has agreed to support a new school in Dudley
in partnership with the club. They want to ensure that these
young people get academic qualifications as well as increased
strength, belief and confidence and, therefore, opportunities for
the future in their lives. These youngsters will be able to
pursue worthwhile careers; they will have a future.
A year ago, during Prime Minister’s questions, my right hon.
Friend the Prime Minister agreed to visit the school when it was
up and running, and I very much look forward to welcoming him to
show him the incredible opportunities that the right kind of
guidance and support can give to the next generations.
Would it not be great if one of the alumni of the new school, in
some decades to come, were perhaps to become a Member of
Parliament, or, indeed, a Dudley Prime Minister of this
country?
11.10pm
(Guildford) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () for this amazing Bill. I
was not able to speak on Second Reading because I was a
Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Education,
but I was sitting on the Benches cheering him to the rafters from
inside. I know how important the Bill is and how important
education and guidance are for our young people.
From having visited schools in deprived parts of my constituency,
I saw that people often moved to Guildford for its amazing
education. I must acknowledge the wonderful schools that we have
within both the mainstream and the independent sectors, but I
have none the less visited schools where children’s aspirations
are not as high as they should be. Even though we have the
wonderful University of Surrey, the Surrey research park and
wonderful links to those schools, children do not always see such
education as a possibility for them. I speak from my own
experience. Without careers guidance at school and universities
coming in, I would never have gone to those sessions because I
did not think that university was for me. Nobody had been to
university in my family. My father worked in a family business,
but we were told not to go into it because it was third
generation and all the cousins would fall out with each other.
When I was in the equivalent of the sixth form, my mother was
actually at school with me, as an adult student, trying to get
some qualifications, so that she could restart her career after
being at home looking after children for a very long time.
I understand personally how important it is not only to get the
right guidance at school but to overcome family obstacles,
especially when it is perhaps not an option to look at going to
university. I encourage my wonderful colleges in Guildford to
have links with those schools, especially as we want technical
qualifications and technical education to have parity of esteem
with other education. Apprenticeships and skills are just as
important for young people as university education. It is
important that we do this for all secondary schools, and it is
also important for me as a parent of three teenagers, one of whom
is in special education because he is on the autism spectrum. It
is important that he has not only a good education but a range of
things that are available to him and that he is encouraged to do,
so that he is trying not just to get through the education years
and achieve the best qualifications that he can but to think
constructively about the future and what he might be able to
achieve in his life.
In the “Skills for jobs” White Paper, published in January 2021,
the Government are trying to bring forward careers hubs, digital
support, careers leader training and the enterprise adviser
network to all secondary schools in England. This private
Member’s Bill, as it will succeed on Third Reading, will be a
huge part of the Government’s wider agenda for young people in
our schools.
11.14am
Mr (South West Hertfordshire)
(Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () on bringing forward this
Bill. As a former governor of a primary school, a chairman of
governors of a further education college, and a governor at an
autistic school, I have seen at first hand how important it is to
ensure that children up and down this country understand the
opportunities that they have. Part of our role as elected Members
of this House is to make sure that children appreciate that they
have opportunities that others around the world may not have. It
is always a stark reminder when I am told that about 75% of women
in the world are illiterate. For us, that should be a crying
shame.
11.15am
I was not able to attend my hon. Friend’s debate in September,
but some of the statistics that he shared about careers advice
were quite profound and, I think, encouraging:
“More than 3,300 business professionals from local businesses are
working with schools and colleges as enterprise advisers to
strengthen employer links. Almost 3.3 million young people are
now having regular encounters with employers, which is up 70% in
two years.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2021; Vol. 700, c.
562.]
My parents’ generation would have had a career for life—one job,
one industry. The reality of technology and the global world we
now live in means that children leaving school, university or
technical college today are likely to have multiple different
careers. Guidance from professional careers advisers is
fundamentally important. It can give them the confidence to make
those brave decisions. It can help them to understand the value
of soft skills, such as wearing a tie or suit when they go for
their first job interview, shining their shoes, turning up on
time and being professional—skills that they may not necessarily
have been accustomed to or shown in their home environment.
One thing that I am really proud of in South West Hertfordshire
is the quality of education. I cannot claim credit for that, but
I have some amazing schools and teachers. Irrespective of our
local education provision, none of us can rest on our laurels. If
we do not continue to strive forward, we will quickly be outpaced
by other parts of the world that rightly put a focus on
education. The competition for our students of today is not from
neighbouring towns or cities; it is from global rivals, who are
potentially also friends. We need to fully equip young people,
students and loved ones, to be the global leaders of tomorrow. I
am conscious of time and I know that some great colleagues want
to speak in this debate, so I will leave it there.
(West Bromwich East)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak on this important Bill,
and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () for his immense efforts to
secure its safe passage.
When I was at school and college, some of the best careers advice
that I received was from my dad, and it is thanks to his wisdom
and support that I found my way. He did not tell me what to do;
it was quite the opposite. He told me I needed to set myself
apart from everyone else my age going to university and
graduating at the same time. I had absolutely no idea what that
meant or how I was going to do it, but somehow I did.
I secured work experience when I was at college, first in a
primary school and later with my local MP, and then I knew
exactly what it was I wanted to do. I was lucky enough to get a
job with that MP—the previous Member of Parliament for Dudley
South, Chris Kelly—and that gave me such great experience when I
was at university. It was essentially like doing a very expensive
apprenticeship, where I paid out more than I earned.
Not everyone who has parents who can advise them about the
industries that they are interested in, or the world of work in
general. None of my family had anything to do with politics. In
my constituency of West Bromwich East, I have seen some fantastic
examples of careers advice at the forefront of a child’s progress
in the education system, but access to high-quality careers
advice from a young age is still something of a postcode lottery
and varies greatly from school to school. Aside from implementing
many of the proposals in the skills White Paper, this Bill will
require secondary schools to start setting out as early as
possible the future education, training and careers options that
will be available to their students, in line with the Gatsby
benchmarks of good career guidance, which apply from year 7 to
year 13. I fully support that approach.
Last year, I co-chaired a report for the Skills Commission about
the difficulties young people face when they attempt to navigate
the careers maze, and we set out nine recommendations for
achieving a longer-term career strategy in this country. I thank
Policy Connect for the opportunity, and I thank my co-chairs Lord
and Dr Siobhan Neary for their hard work. School is
not just about achieving good academic results; it is also about
crafting the people that we want to be, and inspiring young
people. That is why last year, I hosted an online event with Ben
Francis, founder and chief executive officer of Gymshark, to give
young people from West Bromwich the opportunity to learn from a
local lad from the west midlands who used his wages from Pizza
Hut to develop what is now a unicorn, with its headquarters in
the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden ().
To conclude, good careers advice is so important. We need it to
allow young people to explore their strengths and options, and to
give them opportunities to have work experience and support from
their school in doing so. I am proud to support this Bill.
It is a pleasure to speak again in this debate. While I was
slightly premature in mentioning some of my family history, it
goes to show the importance of careers advice, which my hon.
Friend the Member for Workington () described as a torch to
light the way—a compass to help guide young people. That is very
apposite, and I passionately believe it.
My careers advice slightly contrasted to that of my hon. Friend
the Member for Bracknell (): it was given by a very
lovely lady, an elderly French teacher, who I do not think had
done anything apart from teach her whole life, in what was
formerly a cupboard in the school I attended and consisted mainly
of leaflets—it was not a place to hide from the headmistress,
either. However, we do it a lot better now, and I absolutely
commend my hon. Friend the Member on for this Bill, which will
make careers advice even better and—crucially—more consistent
across the board, which I think is what we all want to do for
young people across this country. I am very determined to do that
in Bishop's Stortford, Hertford, Ware and Sawbridgeworth, because
although we are blessed with fantastic schools and fantastic
careers advice, we should never sit on our laurels. Heads in
parts of my constituency, particularly in and around Bishop’s
Stortford, have said how much they believe we should consider a
further education college in Bishop’s Stortford. I am being
slightly opportunistic in mentioning that with the Minister
present: it is something that we will be looking to speak with
him about in future.
I am also a big advocate for apprenticeships. My brother took a
different path from me: he did an apprenticeship with a local
engineering company, and has gone on to become a pilot in the
United States. Both routes are absolutely valid, and both are so
important to realising young people’s potential. To refer to
comments made earlier, if a young person can think of a path
early in life, or even know to keep their options open, that is
good advice. It is also important to consider the soft skills
that careers advice can help young people build. That can direct
what A-levels they might do or whether they go for an
apprenticeship. Learning soft skills can be incredibly valuable
in determining where they go and what they do, and in giving them
an all-round education.
I will not take up much further time, but I am grateful to speak
in this debate. I am a big advocate of my hon. Friend’s Bill, and
I commend him for it. It seeks to provide greater consistency and
quality of careers guidance in all types of secondary schools. It
champions alternative routes of education, and ultimately, I
think it will help to improve the life chances of children across
this country.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (), I launched into my Third
Reading speech a little prematurely—it was very good, but I do
not want to spoil Members too much. What I will say is that I am
extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington
() for having introduced this
Bill. What it is doing is so important: education is the silver
bullet, the tip of the spear. As the shadow Minister, the hon.
Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), said, it is about
aspiration; it is about social mobility; it is about opening up
horizons and telling the next generation that what is expected of
them is not necessarily what they have to do—that they have
options and can look at different things. It is also about
understanding that young people learn differently, and about
getting in early on that in year 7, rather than asking them to
make big life choices at that drop-dead point of A-levels: “Are
you going to go into further education or are you going to go
into something technical or vocational?” It is about giving them
a broader perspective on things.
I have seen that work well in my Heywood and Middleton
constituency. I am lucky to be served by Rochdale Sixth Form
College and Hopwood Hall College for further education. It would
be entirely remiss of me not to put on record my thanks to Julia
Heap, the principal of Hopwood Hall, and Richard Ronksley, the
principal of Rochdale Sixth Form, for their constructive working
relationship and the way they identify students who may not be in
the correct educational pathway and help them to move into a more
appropriate area.
We have mentioned apprenticeships, so I, like everyone else, put
on record my enthusiasm for them. I also mention the apprentice
in my constituency office, William Lee, who is a great young man.
I encourage anyone who is thinking about their future to look
into an apprenticeship, because it is an incredibly good way to
get ahead and learn about something new and exciting. With that,
I will finish so that other hon. Members have time to speak.
(Stroud) (Con)
I welcome the Bill and the opportunity to talk about careers
advice generally. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for
Workington (), who has applied his
energy and skills to try to genuinely transform the lives of
children and young people, including those of Stroud.
Many people around the country will have had chequered
experiences of careers advice in their lifetime. Unfortunately,
unless children are lucky and in a fancy-pants school, where
successful parents are paraded regularly to tell them about their
jobs, they genuinely rely on their school, parents or people on
their street to learn about opportunities, which is not a recipe
for greatness, brilliance or options.
I remember that my careers advice was a short discussion in an
art class about me becoming an air hostess. I made the wrong
choice—it is a wonderful job and it would definitely have
broadened my worldwide horizons, because I basically chained
myself to a desk trying to become a lawyer for years. That narrow
discussion meant that I did not have the guidance to make good
choices at A-level and I did not go to university—it goes on. We
will never know what would have happened if that discussion had
been different. I might not be here; I might be doing something
better.
It irks me that nobody—but nobody—told me that there was a job
called cat scientist. I found that on the telly when I was
watching a programme about people following cats around. I would
have been a brilliant cat scientist—cats have been training me
for that job for years—which just goes to show that we do not
know all the opportunities until we get careers advice. I applaud
what the Government are doing in backing the Bill.
Stroud has a growth hub in the college that brings employers,
businesses and the local enterprise partnership right to our
learners, which is exactly what the Government are trying to
achieve with the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. All MPs on
both sides of the House can do more. When we go out to meet
businesses, we should do those little clips to say, “This job is
available,” or, “There’s this company that you could create.” I
am trying to put together a programme called ambitions, where I
do little interviews, which I will build up. Young people will
probably not want to watch them, but they will be there as an
option to provide more opportunities for learning.
The 2019 Augar review was clear that we need to put more money
into careers advice and more opportunity. The Government are now
listening. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch ( ) was absolutely right to
focus on quality earlier and I was encouraged by his comments and
the Minister’s response. Schools and parents have been desperate
for these changes for years. I do not agree with the shadow
Minister, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins): the
Labour Administration’s focus on getting 50% of children into
university meant that, for years and years, they forgot about the
50% who were left over, which unfortunately meant that their
opportunities and options were ignored.
Ministers have stepped up with the Skills and Post-16 Education
Bill and in support of this Bill today. The Government have
appointed Sir John Holman as the independent strategic adviser on
careers guidance. Most importantly, the narrative of the country
is completely changing for our children and young people, so that
technical education, further education or getting a job straight
after school is not a poor choice. All those things are available
to us, in addition to university, so I welcome the Bill, which
will do so much to achieve that.
11.29am
I will follow on from the contribution of my hon. Friend the
Member for Stroud () on why these things
matter. They matter so much for young people who do not come from
a wealthy area or background or have wealthy parents who will not
be taught in school how to enter a certain profession. In many
schools in London and urban areas in particular, there is a
complete lack of clarity about going into law, accounting,
finance or any kind of professional degree. Time and time again,
I saw how those in academies, those not in education, employment
or training and those falling through the cracks who had been put
into special education were not given any skills to navigate
towards a career or any future at all. I watched talented,
intelligent young people fall by the wayside, join gangs and
disappear off the radar—often into prison—because no one had ever
given them guidance saying, “Here’s what you need to do. Here are
the steps that you can try to follow.” I welcome the Bill,
because it addresses some of the inequalities that I saw again
and again.
This memory will never leave me. I mentored a young woman, and I
thought, “How hard will this be?” but I could not navigate the
system through an academy for her. She was from an immigrant
background, and none of her family had ever been to university,
and the whole school failed her. Everyone in her programme apart
from her left school at 16 with no qualifications. Many of them
are now in gangs, but despite the odds she has persevered and she
has succeeded.
I did everything in my power to try to help and assist her, and
that experience made me realise that the system was broken. If
somebody who does not come from the right background but has all
this talent, skills and abilities cannot navigate the system,
that system needs to change. I thank the Minister and the
Government for addressing this issue and I thank my hon. Friend
the Member for Workington () for bringing the Bill
together and fighting in the House for children and those who
have no voice.
11.31am
I will be brief, because I spoke to the amendments earlier. I
feel strongly about the Bill and applaud my hon. Friend the
Member for Workington () for bringing it to its
Third Reading. First, although I represent the Welsh constituency
of Clwyd South and the Bill applies only to England, the Welsh
Government can learn much from it. Secondly, my hon. Friend made
a vital point about pockets of deprivation—that is very much the
case in my constituency—and better careers guidance is extremely
important for young people from those areas.
Thirdly, the point was made about 50% of children going to
university—my two children are currently at university—and 50%
not doing so. Careers guidance is of even more importance to
those who do not go on to university, because those such as my
children can delay career decisions while at university, but
those going down a different route cannot.
My hon. Friend also mentioned enterprise advisers, of whom there
are now 3,300, and the big increase that we have seen in them. I
feel strongly about that. I have seen with my own children how
mentors from business play a massively important part in giving
them aspiration and ambition as to what they can achieve. It also
works both ways, as, importantly, it binds enterprise, business
and other communities with education.
One point not made perhaps as much as it should have been is
about the particular importance of careers guidance as we come
out of the pandemic, which has thrown the lives of young people
into disarray; I have seen that with my own children. Careers
guidance is therefore extremely important, particularly for the
most disadvantaged. My hon. Friend also mentioned that people do
not necessarily know what their careers will be, so careers
advice is important in helping them come to that decision.
Finally, I am pleased that the Bill will not only extend current
requirements but include children in year 7, which I gather means
650,000 extra pupils. Careers advice is extremely important in
informing and affecting young people’s decisions about what they
will go on to study. It gives me great pleasure to strongly
support the Bill on its Third Reading.
11.34am
What a pleasure it has been to take part in this debate. We have
had some medieval history from me, some family history from my
hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford () and some personal and
socialist history from Opposition Members—or the Opposition
Member, I should say.
We all thank my hon. Friend the Member for Workington () for this excellent Bill,
which will improve a lot of young people’s lives. That is what we
are all here to do. The Government are fully committed to
education and to careers education and guidance, which is an
essential underpinning of our reforms. It has been clear at every
stage that the Bill has cross-party support and co-operation, and
I genuinely thank the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins)
for his party’s support during the Bill’s progress.
We are at an important juncture for skills reform in this
country, and I thank my hon. Friends for supporting the Skills
and Post-16 Education Bill, which will soon return to the House
on Report. The careers work we are pleased to be doing with my
hon. Friend the Member for Workington underpins a lot of that
Bill, and it is wonderful to hear my hon. Friends cite great
examples from their constituencies for us to dwell on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield () made a powerful speech on
what happens in alternative provision settings. These young
people, on whom so much rests, have too often been forgotten. The
most important piece of careers advice I ever heard was on a
visit to an alternative provision setting in Wandsworth about 12
years ago. It was a fantastic setting in which the headteacher
had created a number of studios for practical vocational
education: a car mechanic’s workshop; a hairdressing salon; a
cookery school; and a bricklaying studio. The headteacher said to
the gentleman who taught bricklaying, “Will you tell our visitor
what your last job was? This is what you tell all the pupils.”
And the bricklayer said, “I was an armed robber. I earned £10,000
on my last job and now I earn nearly £30,000 a year working
here.” That was an extraordinarily valuable and inspiring careers
lesson for young people to hear in such a setting.
We want to make sure that young people in all settings,
regardless of their background, have access to high-quality
careers education, which is what our reforms will do. We want to
level up opportunity, and the reforms set out in our skills for
jobs White Paper will give a genuine choice between high-quality
technical and academic routes. It is vital that everyone has
access to careers guidance of the highest standards so that they
are well informed on what will happen afterwards.
We cannot overstate the importance of careers advice, and I thank
all hon. Members for their contributions at this and previous
stages. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington
again on bringing this Bill to the House.
11.38am
With the leave of the House, I am grateful to everyone who has
contributed to this debate and to the Bill’s previous stages. I
will not take up any further time by naming them all, but I put
on record my heartfelt gratitude to each of them.
I also thank the teachers and careers advisers who have taken the
time to share with me their ideas for this important Bill. Their
expertise and knowledge have been critical in helping to shape
the Bill. Their input has been invaluable and has helped me to
understand how we can better serve our young people, whether by
raising their aspirations, providing direction or helping them to
recognise their own talents. A better future is possible for our
young people with improved access to the right support and
guidance.
I also extend my thanks to the Minister, to his predecessor my
hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (), to the Secretary of State
for Education and his Department and to the Opposition
Front-Bench team, particularly the hon. Members for Chesterfield
(Mr Perkins) and for Hove (), for their support throughout
this process.
It was Benjamin Disraeli who said:
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share
your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
This Bill is true to the spirit of those words.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
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