Further education - House of Commons - 14 May 2003

Speech delivered on Wed 14th May 2003

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3.10 pm

Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): For reasons that I hope to expand on in a moment, further education is certainly worth funding properly. It is in the Government's interests to do so if they are serious about expanding the educational opportunities available to us all, particularly those opportunities that are available to those who in traditional terms have perhaps not enjoyed any education beyond 16. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) is therefore to be congratulated on securing this important debate. Politicians have not been talking about FE nearly enough.

For a very long time, FE colleges have been the Cinderella service of our education and skills system: under-recognised, undervalued, and underfunded. That is extraordinary given that FE involves twice as many students as there are in higher education. Part of the trouble is that two-thirds of FE students are part-timers and that is one of the causes for their low priority in Government thinking. That is quite absurd. There is no reason to suppose that a course is any less valid because it is spread over a longer period and studied on a part-time basis.

England's 400 FE colleges are responsible for nearly 4 million students. That is nearly one in 10 of our population. They are studying for 17,000 different qualifications. In fact, FE is and must be central to the Government's entire education and skills agenda. It is central to opening up vocational learning opportunities for 14 to 16-year-olds. It is central to academic and vocational opportunities for 16 to 19-year-olds. It is central to adult learning and skills. FE is central to assisting people to achieve the qualifications that they need to enter higher education, as well as being a direct provider of higher education. It is not difficult to see that the sector is crucial not only to the Government's aim of widening participation in education but to the wider strategies aimed at tackling social exclusion, unemployment, skills shortages and prisoner reoffending—a subject to which I intend to return shortly.

We are talking about a student intake drawn in large part from the very groups for whom the Government want to expand such opportunities. Indeed, 27 per cent. of college students come from the most deprived 15 per cent. of all local government wards. To give credit where credit is due—something that hon. Members may think I do all too seldom—in last year's comprehensive spending review, there was at long last some recognition by the Government that the FE sector requires more money, as my hon. Friend pointed out. Although the Secretary of State talks in terms of a 19 per cent. real-terms increase in funding over the three years to 2005-06, funding per student will rise by only 5 per cent. over that period. Most colleges are receiving increases this year that will just about keep pace with inflation, but little more.

Sadly, that is in the context of an overall decline in unit funding over the last decade. Between 1993-94 and 1998-99, real terms funding per student in further education fell year on year and by 14 per cent. overall—from £3,910 to £3,350. Recent funding settlements have merely halted this trend. They have not put it significantly into reverse. There has been a 70 per cent. increase in the number of students in the FE sector over

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the past five years. Unfortunately, as in our higher education sector, funding has not kept pace with the rise in the number of students. Like our schools, colleges also face extra costs such as the rise in national insurance and pensions contributions and increased pay for teaching staff.

Furthermore, the new money has come with strings attached. In his speech to the Association of Colleges annual conference in Birmingham on 19 November 2002, the Secretary of State announced that the investment would be tied to "a new system of targets and performance management . . . designed to deliver the Prime Minister's four key principles of public sector reform".

He said that the resources "will be allocated on the basis of a performance contract with each college based on the following: increasing customer focus, with targets for student numbers and employer engagement; providing high quality teaching and learning, with a target for learner success rates; and improving the capability of the college workforce, with a target for professional qualifications for teachers."

It is ironic to say the least that one of the Prime Minister's key principles of public sector reform as outlined by the Secretary of State is to "promote devolution and delegation to the front line".

There is an obvious contradiction between that principle and the targets regime announced in the very next sentence. One target is to reduce bureaucracy—only new Labour could institute a centrally imposed target with the aim of reducing bureaucracy. If that is not a contradiction in terms, I do not know what is.

On the subject of bureaucracy, will the Minister act on the unnecessary bureaucracy introduced by at least some of the local learning and skills councils? They vary in how they deal with what they require of their local colleges, but there are horrific tales of colleges having to account for spending down to the last paperclip and of learning and skills councils failing to inform colleges in good time about their budget for the following year, apparently in the expectation that colleges can simply raise or cut staff levels at the stroke of a pen, even in the middle of the academic year.

The Government must also do something about the many separate funding streams through which colleges receive their finances. A typical college has about 30 different funding streams. Far too much money is stuck in specific pots, all of which require separate applications. I suspect that someone will soon start a further education course in how to apply for money to run FE courses.

I turn now to just one illustration of the work that colleges and the FE sector in general can do. It is a demonstration both of the vital part that FE services play in our society and of why the funding question is so important. A recent investigation by the Public Accounts Committee, on which I sat, highlighted the role that education plays, and could play, in reducing prisoner reoffending. In fact, the Prison Service told us that investment in education to help offenders secure jobs after their release would be the single action most likely to affect reoffending.

In response to my questions, the then director general of the Prison Service, Mr. Martin Narey, told us that education can reduce reoffending by 10 to 14 per cent.

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annually. He said that the return from investment "would be dramatic" but that not enough money is going into the system. As a consequence, he said that, with the exception of the under-17 age group, "I do not believe I am doing much more than playing at the edges".

The implications of that analysis, at a time when record numbers of people are behind bars and our prisons are struggling to cope, should be clear to all: the financial cost of providing at least some basic education to those in prison is far outweighed by the cost of locking them away for a second stretch.

It is never easy, and it is certainly not popular, to call for more spending on those in prison, and I suspect that I do so at some risk. It is all too easy for the tabloids to say, "If there's enough money to spend on offenders, why can't we have enough money for our schools and those who have not offended?" However, it is an area of policy in which politicians will just have to defy the tabloids. We must point out that prison education is hugely cost effective not only in helping prisoners to become productive members of society, but in reducing the costs of crime, both financial and social.

I shall turn to the dramatic new Conservative policy announced yesterday. The Conservative press release, of which the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) will be well aware, states that the Government's 50 per cent. higher education participation target "forces too many young people onto unsuitable courses when they would benefit more from high-level vocational qualifications."

For a party that says that it believes in choice, one might suppose that such a decision is for the individual student rather than the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Leaving that aside, where will the money come from for the roughly 400,000 extra places on vocational courses that the policy implies? The Conservatives are hoping to use all the money that they save from taking people out of universities to pay for the abolition of tuition fees, but they have not told us where they will find the extra money for all the extra vocational courses.

Colleges already face real problems with the recruitment of teaching staff because salaries are so uncompetitive, as other Members have said. If the Conservatives are serious about providing more courses to train people to be plumbers and carpenters—as their leader said yesterday—they will need to find the money to pay for more tutors. The salaries will have to be competitive enough to attract people who at the moment can earn far more on the job—more, in most cases, than MPs earn. The truth is that the Conservatives are nostalgic for the old days when a university education was the preserve of a privileged few. There will be fewer places and less support for students from non-traditional backgrounds in higher education, and no commitment to additional resources to help those who prefer vocational courses in FE instead.

To return to the Government, the reality is that they have no coherent vision for the role of the FE sector in our education and skills system. As I said at the outset, it is arguable whether the Government's aim of widening participation in this sector will be met at all. Some 11 per cent. of degrees already come from FE colleges. There seems little recognition from the Government, however,

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of the huge role that FE is ideally placed to play in expanding the educational opportunities available to us all. That is reflected in the discrepancy between funding for colleges and funding for school sixth forms; between the support offered to part-time students and that offered to full-time students; and between the different levels of support students can expect depending on whether they opt for the FE or the HE route.

In addition to well funded FE colleges, we need to support students in FE. We welcome the Government's decision to introduce education and maintenance allowances for 16 to 19-year-olds. However, the time has come, as has been said in relation to the foyer movement, to develop a comprehensive system of student support for adult FE students. It is interesting to note that we spend in excess of £2.2 billion a year on student support for full-time higher education students, but barely a tenth of that amount on full-time and part-time adult FE students. That is despite the fact that the FE sector has twice as many students. Those inconsistencies are indicative of a Government who, after six years in office, continue to lack a coherent sense of direction for the FE sector. That failure undermines the Government's strategy for 14 to 19-year-olds, their higher education strategy, and their adult learning strategy. It also points to a continued failure to recognise the immense value of the FE sector to society as a whole. Our FE colleges are a vital resource, and we should support them.

3.23 pm