Sir Gavin Williamson
MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I ask the Minister to look at new clause 104, which has been tabled in my name, with the support of 16 other Members from all parts of the House. The issue of people not being able to have children is growing. Male fertility has been collapsing over the past few decades.”
“We all often have a common memory that is so incredibly important and special: holding our child for the very first time. Sadly, so many people up and down this country cannot have that memory because of their difficulty in having children.”
“That is just not right, and I urge the Minister to be proactive in looking at how it can be addressed. We face a demographic issue in this country. We have a falling birth rate, with fewer than 600,000 babies born in this country last year. That will only get worse. It is sad that the NHS is not prioritising this issue.”
“As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will know, many of those Jaguar Land Rover employees live in my constituency, but they are across the whole midlands. In August, the Government committed to consulting on the zero emission vehicle mandate.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for articulating a desire to reach across the political divide on issues that are common among all our constituents. across all our constituencies, more and more people are struggling to have a family—to have children. This is a greater and greater issue all across the country.”
“The Leader of the House is usually a very thoughtful and considerate man, but my recollection is similar to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith); it is that once a date had been agreed through the usual channels, it was usually stuck to.”
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“It is important that we do everything we can to help all children, right across the country. That is why, especially through working with the Education Endowment Foundation, the guidance and the evidence is freely available and exists to support all schools, whether they are state schools or private schools. We will always ensure that that evidence, information, and very best guidance and best practice are available for schools in the private sector as well as the state sector.”
“It is always lovely to hear from the hon. Lady; I thank her very much for her comments. We have set out a comprehensive plan for the return of pupils to education, which is, let’s face it, something that she will always be opposed to. She seems to think that the only thing that a school should do is be shut. In her time on the Front Bench and on the Back Benches, she has never taken up the baton for children in order to campaign for them to be in school. She seems to take the view that they are best at home. That is not the view of Government Members.”
“I remember reading my hon. Friend’s report, which reached much more broadly than just the issue that he raised. He is right to raise the important issue of how we look at the structures in education. I very much encourage him to sit down with me and Sir Kevan Collins to discuss some of his thoughts and ideas. We will always be very keen to talk about the whole breadth of what can be done to really drive attainment for children, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.”
“I will try to give a brief answer, Madam Deputy Speaker. We always want to give assurance to those who work in schools, as well as parents and the children themselves, about the safety measures that we have put in place. That is why we have developed the current set of controls for safety in schools with Public Health England, taking on the very best public health advice.”
“That is why we felt it was so important to give some flexibility to schools and teachers, who will obviously understand their children and their individual learning needs best of all. Obviously, we rightly often look at some of the challenges of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, but learning needs and challenges can vary regardless of what parents earn or the background they come from. That is why we need to give teachers the flexibility to target that support most appropriately to the child.”
“At every stage we put the wellbeing of our children and those who work in schools at the heart of everything we do. We believe that children benefit from being in school. That is why we are very pleased that, by taking this cautious approach, we are able to welcome all children back.”
“My hon. Friend raises a very important point, and apprentices will be able to access these courses online so that they are able to complete their studies and their training.”
“It is odd to see a Labour politician not seeming to welcome the fact that we are putting more money into education, but maybe it betrays his true colours.”
“I very much hope the hon. Gentleman got the copy of the skills for jobs White Paper that I sent him, which he had obviously not read when he asked his last question. He will also know that I am fully aware that teachers are not paid £6,000. Thankfully, as a result of this Government’s interventions, starting salaries will be hitting £30,000 a year for newly qualified teachers very shortly. What we are doing is giving schools the ability to use that extra resource to bring in and pay for extra support for a few weeks to boost the learning and the education of children in lots of different settings. That might be on English, it might be on maths, it might be for sport or it might be for a whole different range of areas.”
“The point my hon. Friend raises is incredibly important, because we must ensure that those youngsters, and people of all ages doing those technical and vocational qualifications who need the ability to demonstrate their professional competency, are able to do so. It is absolutely vital that we open up our college system and open up our training providers to ensure that they can continue to progress.”
“This was an important part of the £700 million extra funding that we have made available, making sure there is funding for FE colleges to be able to deliver and expand the tutoring and catch-up programmes they already have, but this is against a backdrop of increasing funding for our amazing further education colleges that we value so highly.”
“We always work incredibly closely with Public Health England at every stage. Obviously we, and I know my hon. Friend also, want to see the opening of all schools for all pupils at the earliest stage, and one of the key elements in assisting that smooth return was the advice that Public Health England gave us on the wearing of face masks.”
“I refer the hon. Lady to my answer to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on the extra support that is being made available to further education colleges.”
“I can very much reassure my right hon. Friend that we are currently working with Ofqual and the exam boards on that exact piece of work right now, and we would hope to be able to share that in the not too distant future.”
“The hon. Lady is probably aware that my hon. Friend the Universities Minister laid out a set of packages of support for university students as part of a £70 million hardship fund. I would be happy to ask her to write to the hon. Lady with the details of that.”
“My hon. Friend has always had strong views on face masks, and I very much note his comments. This will be reviewed during the Easter holidays. He is right to highlight the concerns about teachers being under pressure from parents. That is why we have put in an extensive and robust internal quality inspection system whereby the head teacher has to sign off and verify the results that are given by the teachers, as well as external assessment by the exam boards to ensure that the grading is in line with where it should be.”
“I very much agree that that sort of language is absolutely not acceptable, and it genuinely surprises me that it would have come from any school or educational establishment, as they are usually so incredibly good at showing compassion and understanding. My right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this in more detail. We saw, from September onwards, schools showing a sensible level of discretion in terms of saying, yes, school is quite clearly mandatory and fines can be applied, but also showing some good sense in working with families to ensure that their children were attending schools and making sure that all risk was minimised.”
“I know there is enormous cross-party consensus, and a real will on all sides of the House to make a real change in this sector—a change that has been needed for so long. I very much hope that all Members will work together to ensure that we can deliver on this. These proposals will ensure that people can learn the skills they need to get a great job, and have control over the means of ensuring a more fulfilling and productive life. This White Paper will be the lever to unleash our nation’s creativity and talents, and will make this country an economic force to be reckoned with. I commend this statement to the House.”
“We want to ensure that our small and specialist providers, including some of our top music and arts providers, receive additional support, and that grant funding is used to support students effectively as well. This spring, we will consult on further reforms to the higher education system, including the introduction of minimum entry requirements to higher education institutions and addressing the high cost of foundation years, before setting out a full response to the report, and a final conclusion to the review of post-18 education and funding, alongside the next comprehensive spending review. The White Paper is a step change in how this country prepares people for their working lives.”
“I have laid copies of the report of Dame Shirley Pearce’s independent review of the teaching excellence and student outcomes framework, and the Government’s response, before both Houses of Parliament. Today I have also published the post-qualifications admission reform consultation, which seeks views on whether to change the system of higher education admissions and move to a system of post-qualification admissions. Our proposed reform to the teaching grant for the academic year 2021-22 will allocate funding in a way that delivers value for money for students and the taxpayer, and increases support for strategic subjects such as engineering and medicine while slashing the taxpayer subsidy for such subjects as media studies.”
“All our reforms depend on our ability to recruit and retain top-quality teaching staff in the further education sector, so we will launch a national recruitment campaign for further education teachers, strengthen initial teacher education, improve the support that new teachers receive, and help to provide more opportunities for improved training and development, such as work experience, as part of our industry exchange programme. When the Prime Minister announced the lifetime skills guarantee last year, he spoke of how we will align our further and higher education sectors. I can tell the House that we have published the interim conclusion of the review of post-18 education and funding, which addresses some of the key recommendations made by Dr Philip Augar in his report from 2019.”
“All apprenticeship starts are now on employer-designed standards. We will support employers to make greater use of their levy contributions by improving the transfer system and having more flexible training models. The White Paper will also extend our network of institutes of technology to every region of the country, and we will see a corresponding increase in higher-level technical skills in science, technology, engineering and maths. In this way, we will future-proof our workforce, so that we are ready to deal with a constantly evolving economic landscape.”
“As far as long-term plans are concerned, we are going to move to a more coherent, simpler funding model that we will design together with the sector, and we will consult on it later in the spring. It will ensure a far more focused approach to funding. The consultation will be guided by the principles of high value, greater flexibility for providers, and enhanced accountability, which will see providers taking greater responsibility for their results. By 2030, we expect nearly all technical courses to follow employer-led standards, so that we ensure that the education and training people receive are directly linked to the skills that they will need to get a job. We will continue with our existing programme of reforms in areas such as employer-led apprenticeships and our T-level programme.”
“We will start the ball rolling with a small number of trailblazer areas this year, and we will pilot a strategic development fund of £65 million in 2021-22 to help providers reshape provision to meet local employers’ needs. By putting the employer voice at the heart of skills provision, we will ensure that technical education and training gives people the skills they need to get great jobs in sectors that the economy needs and boost this country’s productivity. We will back this through £1.5 billion of capital funding to upgrade our further education colleges. Today we announced the next phase of the FE capital transformation fund, and last week we made the next wave of capital funding for T-level providers available, with £135 million available to those delivering them in September 2022.”
“This White Paper is going to put employers firmly at the centre of our local skills systems, working in partnership with colleges and key local stakeholders to shape technical skills provision, so that it better supports the local economy. It will introduce German-style local skills improvement plans, which will be led by business organisations such as local chambers of commerce. Those plans will identify the skills that an area needs and spell out what needs to change to make training more responsive to employers’ needs. In turn, our further education colleges will shape the courses they offer to meet those skills needs, and we will make strategic development funding available to help them do that.”
“In April, we will also kickstart the expansion of higher technical education, as we work towards making it as easy to get a loan for an approved higher technical qualification as it is for a full-length degree. We will also introduce pilots to encourage more flexible and modular provision, so that courses are more accessible and convenient. Lifelong loan entitlement will be up and running from 2025 and will build on the changes we are bringing in through this White Paper. Learners will be able to fit study around work, family and personal commitments and retrain as their circumstances and the economy change.”
“Our new flexible digital skills bootcamp training will give people the technical skills they need for great jobs through 12 to 16-week courses, and those bootcamps will expand into other sectors, such as engineering. From this April, tens of thousands of adults will be able to benefit from almost 400 free courses, which will be the first phase in the lifetime skills guarantee. These fully funded courses, which range from engineering to healthcare and conservation, will be available to adults without a full qualification at A-level equivalent or above, to help them gain skills that are in demand and that will open up exciting job opportunities for them.”
“There is an urgent need to rebuild an economy injured by the covid pandemic. We have already outlined an unprecedented support package to protect jobs and offer retraining to those who have lost theirs due to covid-19, but beyond covid we must also forge a new identity as an independent trading nation. Both those challenges have exposed our need for a strong and flourishing technical education sector to fire up the jobs of the future. This White Paper is our blueprint for that future. It will play a pivotal role in creating jobs and rebuilding our economy. Through the lifetime skills guarantee, we will help people train and retrain at any stage of their lives.”
“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of a Skills for Jobs White Paper on the next steps for post-16 education reform. Last October, I notified the House of our plans to introduce a dynamic programme of measures to reshape this country’s further and technical education landscape, which is a key part of our mission to empower everyone in this country and level up those areas that have been overlooked and under-resourced for too long. I informed hon. and right hon. Members that the details of how we would do this would be spelled out in a White Paper, and I am pleased to announce its publication today. The House needs no reminding that this country stands at a critical point in its history. We have some enormous challenges ahead.”
“We need to make sure that that message is out there. By taking it out there and making sure that colleges have the ability and support to deliver, we will literally change the future of hundreds of thousands of young lives, and the course of the lives of so many other people who need new skills to prosper and take on the new challenges they face.”
“This is not about taking away from one to give to another; it is about making sure that all young people, whatever their choice, have a good choice. Our colleges are some of the greatest institutions in this country. They have such deep links with and roots in local communities, because so often they were forged out of those local communities by local businesses to satisfy local needs. We aim to bring those colleges back to the founding principles of further education and of their creation. We want to deliver a revolution and reform of our college sector and our technical and vocational sector. Young people can achieve so much by having higher technical qualifications. For far too long, it has been felt that there is only one choice: to go to university. Actually, so often, taking a different route gives so much more to young people.”
“I certainly take on board a number of the challenges the hon. Lady throws down. I think there is a real appetite on both sides of the House to ensure that not just young people but people of every age have the flexibility to pick up the new skills required in such a rapidly changing economy. We always want to bring measures forward much faster than we can, and I am always happy to work with her to ensure that any changes we bring forward in this House have the enthusiastic support of the Opposition. I note that the Labour Deputy Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell), is in his place; I am sure he would be happy to facilitate that. The measures will recast the post-16 education landscape.”
“The hon. Lady raises a number of important points. I almost had the impression that she might even want to work together on a common cause, but we did not quite get to that point. We recognise that we want to invest more in our further education estate. That is why we have put forward the £1.5 billion capital programme. We recognise that we want to put more into skills for all young people, and for people of all ages who recognise that they need to gain new skills to advance their prospects or enter a different place of work. That is why we put £2.5 billion behind the national skills fund. We recognise that we need to invest more in our colleges. That is why we have had record rises in 16-to-19 funding, not only last year but this year. We want to continue to work with the sector to strengthen it.”
“Friend’s thought about having a parallel system to UCAS. It may also be worth looking at the options for bringing it together and making sure that UCAS includes college courses so that students can make the very best decisions for their futures.”
“I know that my right hon. Friend has championed this not just in his maiden speech, but the whole time he has been in the House of Commons. He is absolutely right that it is not adequate to expect family members to be able to give young people the advice they need. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to Lord Baker of Dorking, who did so much in moving the amendment. We need to toughen this up. I want to see parity of esteem—people looking at the choices they can take, and not just immediately moving to university. I would like UCAS to demonstrate that by having a list of college courses available to students, especially if we move to a system of post-qualification application. I think that colleges and what they can provide could be a much more powerful offer for so many young people. I will happily take up my right hon.”
“The hon. Lady makes an important point, and that is why we set up the skills and productivity board to look at some of the challenges. For many businesses, one challenge is that they are not necessarily looking at taking people on through a graduate route, where someone has to learn skills over a three-year period; often, they are looking for much smaller, bite-sized training. That is why the boot camps that we are launching in areas such as digital training and advanced engineering are so incredibly important, to ensure that the sector has the responsiveness it needs to satisfy the skills needs that so many businesses in her constituency are crying out for.”
“My hon. Friend is so right, and many young people in her constituency will be looking for the opportunity to unlock their true potential. That will not always be through a university degree; so often, it is through our amazing further education colleges, which deliver for their communities. Making this investment and these reforms will enable them to go from strength to strength, while being absolutely rooted in the needs of the local economy. Let us make sure that we are training our young people in the skills that they need in order to get the jobs that are out there, as against skills that lead to no jobs.”
“The hon. Lady will see that this is an expansive package of support for people who want to get training and skills, which is very much designed and fit for the modern economy and responsive enough to shift with changing labour market needs.”
“I know that my hon. Friend has been championing the concept of silicon Stoke and ensuring that Stoke-on-Trent has not only the inward investment that is vital for the revitalisation of that great city but investment in the human capital, talent and resources that it has always had but that need enhancing. I look forward to working with him to ensure that that happens and that investment comes to the great city of Stoke-on-Trent.”
“As the hon. Lady is aware, we had a one-year funding round this year. Every Secretary of State always aspires to a multi-year funding round, and I think there is very much cross-party agreement on that. We were able to secure one for schools, and I very much hope that in the future we will be in a position to secure one for post-16 education.”
“In my hon. Friend’s constituency of Grantham and Stamford, there is already great provision in colleges. We want to make it even greater and make sure they have the resources to grow what they are doing. We want to make sure they are truly linked in with the local economy, because where there are skills shortages in his constituency, colleges are the first places t which businesses turn to plug the gap. We want to make sure the economy and business are growing strongly and creating the employment that we all want in his constituency and all our constituencies.”
“The hon. Gentleman obviously could not be bothered to actually read the White Paper, so I will send him a copy. He will notice that there have been lots of new announcements.”
“I will take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend for his work in enabling us to proceed with this skills for jobs White Paper. Without his commitment and dedication, including the odd skirmish with the Treasury, we would not have made the progress we have made with the institutes of technology, which are already starting to transform young people’s lives, and of course with T-levels. On where we want to go, we really want business organisations to work with colleges, putting this on a statutory footing, very much like what we see in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where they can co-design the qualifications they need and match the job needs of the local community. That will bring those businesses and the business sector into the heart of those colleges, ensuring that we drive employment and the right set of skills.”
“I will complement that with a shorter answer. The answer is very much so. Colleges will play a really important role in retraining. Obviously, there will be a different set of skills and certain industries will have retracted, but it is about making sure that young people and people of all ages get the right skills for the economy.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done with me and, of course, the Minister for skills and colleges. We have appreciated him highlighting the challenges faced by Newton Rigg. We and the whole Department will continue to work with him and do everything we can to secure a sustainable future for the college by working with local partners.”
“We will always, whether through the national skills fund or the lifetime skills guarantee, look at every measure that needs to be taken to maximise flexibility in the skills sector. These are important steps in the right direction. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm words, but I take note of the fact that, quite understandably, he calls for us to go a little further, as I am sure all Opposition Members would always ask us to do.”
“My hon. Friend is right to highlight the great work that East Coast College does. It is a brilliant example and has such a positive impact in serving its local community. It will be up to a comprehensive spending review to set any multi-year settlements—not the Budget, sadly—but we will be working on the simplification of budgets and the allocation of moneys, which will benefit and help many colleges in managing their finances.”
“We want to ensure that local communities benefit from the type of major infrastructure investments that we are making right across the country, whether that is HS2 or other infrastructure. When the hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to go through the White Paper, he will clearly see that we want to put local business right at the heart of decision making. It is a model that has worked in countless countries, including Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and we want to replicate it, because those businesses are the ones that are seeking the skills, and we think they should be a key part of determining what is needed locally.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is so important that our colleges are at the forefront of ensuring that we have the skills needed for the new technologies and new emerging markets, which will be so demanding of skills, whether in green energy, digital or cyber-security. Colleges can play a pivotal role in providing those skills swiftly and quickly for the market needs.”
“We certainly hope that right across the country, and not just in Bristol, everyone sees colleges as a vital lever in delivering economic growth through delivering skills.”