PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Educational Opportunities - 13 November 2024 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling barriers to educational opportunities.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard.

In the UK today, most 18-year-olds—around 64%—do not go to university. I want to focus on the barriers facing the 64% of young people in accessing the education and training that they need to lead fulfilling working lives. I do not believe that they have benefited from the same educational opportunities as the minority of young people who leave school for university, and that makes no moral, social or economic sense. In my view, our system of vocational education and training is not working for the 64%, or for our country.

My constituency of Folkestone and Hythe has incredible potential for a thriving vocational education and training system. It has strengths in the creative industries, independent retail, tourism and hospitality, as well as green energy and nuclear decommissioning. We are home to the Little Cheyne Court wind farm and the former Dungeness nuclear power station. However, the potential for a technical education system to supply those industries, and others, with skilled workers in both Folkestone and Hythe and the UK as a whole remains untapped. In 2022-23, there were 677 apprenticeship starts in Folkestone and Hythe, but only five in the leisure, tourism and travel sector, despite the size of that sector. And despite the significant number of regeneration projects in Folkestone and Hythe, the number of apprenticeship starts in construction, planning and the built environment fell by 49% in 2022-23 compared with the previous year.

Our country has some incredible further education colleges; I commend the work of East Kent college in Folkestone. When I visited during the general election campaign, I was shown workshops, kitchens and classrooms where, among many other vocations, the builders, electricians, carpenters, programmers, chefs and healthcare workers of the future are being educated. The college, which was judged to be “outstanding” by Ofsted in 2023, offers an incredible range of qualifications, including BTecs and T-levels. It offers adult education and there is also a junior college, with a two-year creative curriculum for learners aged 14 and over who want to specialise in arts or business studies. I thank its staff and students for their hard work, and for the grilling that they gave me and the other candidates at a hustings event hosted by the college before the election.

Unfortunately, in many colleges like East Kent college, not all students who complete courses in specialist areas actually go on to work in those fields. That is not always down to students changing their minds; it is also because of the lack of jobs and apprenticeships available in the labour market. Under 14 years of Conservative Governments, apprenticeships starts plummeted, the apprenticeship levy was exposed as inadequate and further education was starved of vital funds. In 2015-16, the total number of apprenticeship starts was 509,000; by 2022-23, that number had fallen to 337,000. Between 2017 and 2024, the number of engineering apprenticeship starts fell by 42%. It was encouraging to see that apprenticeship starts grew by 3% in the month Labour took office, demonstrating employers’ optimism following the change of Government.

I am afraid to say that the Conservatives’ reforms, such as the apprenticeship levy and T-levels, were ineffective. There was not enough flexibility built into the apprenticeship levy and not enough investment in apprenticeships for younger learners. As the chief executive officer of Make UK, Stephen Phipson, has said, successive Governments have provided inadequate funding for engineering apprenticeships, rendering them uneconomical for FE colleges and private providers to deliver. Neither have we had proper alignment between our industrial and our vocational education strategies.

As a result, our skills policy has not been supporting the sectors of our economy we most need to grow. Sectors such as battery technology, electrical vehicle production and renewable technology manufacturing do not receive the funding for apprenticeships that they need, and in turn do not benefit from a steady supply of skilled workers. We need to end the mismatch between what is taught and the skills needed by the labour market. I warmly welcome the Government’s agenda for skills and vocational education and the Budget announcement of an additional £300 million funding boost for further education next year. But we know that in this policy area, as in so many others, funding is not enough—ambitious reform is what we need.

I will touch on three aspects of the Government skills policy: Skills England, devolution and reform of the apprenticeship levy. I support the creation of Skills England, which will end the fractured skills landscape and bring together combined authorities, businesses, workers, trade unions and colleges so that there is co-ordination to meet local economies’ skills needs. It is incredibly important that Skills England will be a strategic body so that it can make sure that our industrial strategy, Invest 2035, and the vocational educational strategy work as one. Only then will sectors such as advanced manufacturing, which is rightly a focus of our Invest 2035 plan, benefit from a predictable supply of skilled labour.

I also support the fact that part of Skills England’s mandate will be to collaborate with the Migration Advisory Committee so that we ensure that our own young talent is trained up and joins our labour market before we reach out to recruit from abroad. We have an abundance of young talent. This is about ensuring that our skills policy makes the most of the talent, work ethic and creativity of our young people while having an immigration system that welcomes the workers we need to get our economy growing and our public services working again. The Migration Advisory Committee has for far too long looked at labour market shortages in a vacuum without thinking about how our skills policy can address those shortages in the long term.

I also believe that it is important for more powers over skills and technical education to be devolved, because the UK still has variation in our regional economies. For example, the creative industries are very important in Folkestone and Hythe, and nationally that sector contributed £124 billion to the UK economy in ’22. In the west midlands, the automotive sector is important. On Teesside, there is a resilient chemical sector, and there is still a proud steel industry in Scunthorpe and Port Talbot. Different regional economies will demand different focuses and priorities for policymakers, so I endorse the Government’s plan to ensure that there are local skills improvement plans and that adult skills funding will be devolved to combined authorities.

Reform of the apprenticeship levy is long overdue. The levy is a tax on employers with a wage bill of over £3 million a year that funds apprenticeships. The problem is that the funds levied can be spent only on very specific types of training. For example, businesses cannot use the money to fund any courses shorter than one year. The new growth and skills levy will be critical, because it will mean that businesses will be able to pay for a greater range of training options, apprentices will have more choice and apprenticeships can be shorter than a year. It is very important that employers will be required to fund more of their level 7—that is, master’s degree-level—apprenticeships. The money saved there will be reinvested into foundation apprenticeships, which will give younger workers more opportunity and flexibility.

I know that the road ahead is challenging. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of skills shortages in the UK doubled to more than half a million, and by 2022 skills shortages accounted for 36% of job vacancies. Training expenditure is also at its lowest level since records began in 2011. Yet if we get skills policy right, the opportunities are huge. Total revenue from the apprenticeship levy is forecast to grow from £3.9 billion to £4.6 billion by 2029 due to rising wages. A broader skills base will mean more productive jobs, higher labour productivity, stronger wage growth and rising living standards for all workers, not just university-educated professionals. That will benefit young people, many of whom feel demotivated and disenfranchised and believe that the 21st century economy does not serve them. In places where they have been given a pound shop instead of a workshop, they may be right.

On future policy development, can the Minister provide more detail on the timeline for when we can expect the different phases of development of Skills England? I would also be grateful to know how the Government plan to align Invest 2035 with their post-16 education strategy. Both those strategies require prioritisation, so what sectors do the Government plan to focus on to drive up the number of apprenticeship starts? Are there any other areas of education and skills policy that the Government would like to devolve to local economies rather than combined authorities? For example, there is no combined authority in Kent. What plans do the Government have to ensure more apprenticeship starts in the industries of the future, such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, green energy and new nuclear?

I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. Somerset is home to Agratas, which is a 40 GWh gigafactory at the Gravity Smart Campus. It is creating jobs and boosting the green economy. It is important that local people in Somerset have the skills to work in those jobs, so does the hon. Member agree that we should encourage local partnerships between schools and industry to teach science, technology, engineering and maths skills and offer those opportunities?

The hon. Member is absolutely right, and that is exactly what Skills England is going to do. It is about the collaboration between all the different stakeholders in society, not just businesses and colleges, to enable us to get to a point where the skills need is being facilitated by education providers.

A high quality vocational education system will improve social mobility, and be one of the best ways to tackle the precarity of the low skill, low productivity and low pay economies that have been built over the last 14 years. I look forward to working with the Government to break down the barriers to opportunity for the 64% of young people who do not go to university, and to build a vocational training system that we can all be proud of.

Order. The debate is very popular and oversubscribed; over 17 Members want to speak. To get everybody in, I am afraid that I will be imposing a time limit of two and a half minutes. I call Jamie Stone, who I am sure will set a great example.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on a most interesting speech.

If one visits the Scottish Parliament—some Members may have done or may in future—one cannot help but admire the woodwork. The joinery, carpentry and cabinetmaking are of the highest standard. I was on the Committee that oversaw the building of that Parliament—it nearly cost me my seat in the 2003 Scottish election, but that is beside the point. What struck me very forcibly was that in the United Kingdom we did not have the cabinetmaking and joinery skills to produce a finished article of that quality. Most of the work was done by people from Romania, Poland and other eastern European countries. My point is that when skills disappear, they can sometimes disappear forever.

I worked as a young man at a yard in Wester Ross called Kishorn, where the mighty Ninian Central Platform for the North sea was built. I worked at Nigg, where a number of the hard steel jackets were constructed. At the highpoint of Nigg in the early 1980s, some 5,000 people worked there. They were highly skilled: they were trained in welding, fabrication and all manner of supporting disciplines to achieve some of the greatest structures ever built for the North sea. Today, many of those people are retired or nearly at retirement age, and my big worry—this echoes the point made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe—is that although those people could pass on the skills and train young people in them, there is no effort to make that happen. We could be faced with a parallel to the situation I described at the Scottish Parliament: skills could disappear.

I am heartened by the news from Hull that turbine blades are going to be constructed there. That is good news and the Prime Minister was quite correct to emphasise that today. The point is that we should be making far more floating offshore structures in the United Kingdom—the cells, the blades and the towers themselves. While we have the fabrication skills in different parts of the UK, including in my constituency in Scotland, we should get that business going again and be training up the next generation.

In the past, there was an organisation called the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Under the management of the Scottish Government, it has been left to become almost nothing. I am sorry that no SNP Members are here to hear that. They should get up and sort it out, because if that is not reactivated, we are in dead trouble.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate and for his compelling and comprehensive survey of adult education.

For centuries, Scotland had one of the best education systems in the world, but that is not the case today under the Scottish National party. Attainment has been falling for years. As recent programme for international student assessment reviews show, standards in literacy, mathematics and science are falling, and that is closing doors for children and young people in my seat. The response in Glasgow, I am afraid, has been to cut 172 teaching posts this year, with further cuts to come.

The attainment gap in Scottish schools is widening. Where someone is born is becoming more, not less, important than it was and barriers for poorer children are increasing. It is worth saying that the Government are tackling one of the causes of the attainment gap—poverty—by introducing legislation that will make work pay and tackling family poverty by increasing the national minimum and living wage. However, the SNP is also responsible for the attainment gap in our schools and that is preventing young people from getting good jobs and being able to provide for their families.

A simple example of that failure is that since 2010, there has been a material drop in school attendance. If someone does not go to school, they do not learn. There has also been a general worsening of behaviour in Scottish schools since 2016, shown by figures from the Scottish Government themselves. Put simply, in many Scottish schools, parents, children and teachers have great fear and worry about school behaviour. Nicola Sturgeon made it clear that closing the attainment gap was her main objective, but the SNP has failed on that.

Adult education, which my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe spoke so compellingly about, is critical for jobs for people in Scotland. The OECD recently carried out a study of Scottish adult education and other matters in the west coast of Scotland, where my seat is located. It reported that career guidance for adults is “challenging to access” and financial incentives to invest in reskilling and upskilling workers are very low. That has a terrible impact on low-paid workers in Scotland and a real impact on both economic growth in Scotland and such critical matters as the transition from oil and gas to renewables.

With six seconds to go, I will conclude by saying that elections take place in Holyrood in 2026. It is time for change and a Government that put education first.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I commend the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this broad-ranging debate on barriers to education opportunities. There are many things that we could talk about, but in 150 seconds I will restrict myself to three things.

The first is about free school meals. Labour Members said some pretty terrible things in 2018 about what we would do to eligibility for free school meals. It did not happen. In reality, the number of children eligible has risen from about one in six in 2010 to one in three most recently, and that is despite employment, the number of children growing up in workless households and the number of people in work and on low pay having come right down. What will the Government do to keep entitlement at around the same level as now even after universal credit roll-out has concluded?

Secondly, I want to ask about the holiday activities and food programme, which has been successful for young people. I am sure the new Government would not dream of cutting it, but a lot of local areas—I know that one in Yorkshire has been discussing the matter very recently—want some reassurance and some forward visibility about what will happen with the HAF programme after the end of this year.

Finally, I wanted to ask about breakfast clubs. The Government have talked a great deal about primary school breakfast clubs and people are quite disappointed about the scale of what they have heard so far. The total percentage of primary schools in England covered by the first phase is, I think, 4.5%. They also talk about breakfast clubs as if they were something novel, whereas in reality there are thousands in schools across the country already. So when they say they need to move slowly because they need to have a pilot, what does the Minister think needs to be piloted? Is it the type of bowl or the angle of pour of the cornflakes, or is it just that they are trying slow down the roll-outs?

Most importantly, I want to ask about secondary schools and special schools. Among the thousands of breakfast clubs, including those supported by the national school breakfast programme, are those in secondary schools and special schools. If we are talking about impacting something like attendance, we can have more of an impact with breakfast clubs at secondary school. Again, I am sure that the Government will not think about cutting that programme—it would be unthinkable to do so—but what will they do? When will they give visibility to secondary schools and special schools about how they will grow the support for breakfast clubs in schools in the future?

Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for your chairmanship. One of the many legacies of the previous Government is a crisis in education and overwhelming barriers to opportunity for young people. Those barriers do not diminish with age, as gaining new skills is difficult in a country where employer investment in training and development has fallen by a third

The UK economy is facing a severe skills shortage. Over the next decade, we will need 350,000 construction apprenticeships, 1.3 million skilled tradespeople and 130 naval nuclear roles. However, apprenticeships have started to decline sharply in recent years, highlighting the need for a focus on them. First, we want to create more opportunities for apprenticeships. Despite a chronic skills gap, for every apprenticeship, there are three applications. We need to restore financial incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises to take on apprenticeships, make the apprenticeship funding model more transparent, and get into our communities and showcase to children, young people and parents the opportunities that are out there. We need to increase financial support for the apprenticeship rate; it is set at £6.40 at the moment and that is just not enough to survive on. We need to expand foundational apprenticeships and introduce shorter apprenticeships for those who cannot afford the 12 months, and we have to simplify the system and increase the flexibility.

Secondly, it is vital that we value all pathways. The toxic legacy of the Tories in education and the undervaluing of certain subjects—from vocational courses to the arts and social sciences—have meant a loss in those areas. Inspiring young people into diverse sectors is vital, and many young people and their parents do not see trade careers as an option. We must boost careers advice and awareness of apprenticeships. We must use the growth and skills levy, with which the spending of levy money on accessing outreach should be permitted. Careers advice must also highlight the range of training provisions.

Finally, we must bring local people into those opportunities. In my constituency, 8.8% of people are on minimum wage. We have good-quality jobs in industry and technology, as well as naval and maritime opportunities, but they are not being accessed by local people. I believe that if we cannot see it, we cannot do it. We must open up those opportunities to local people, whether they are children or people who want to change career, with outreach into their local communities. In short, we need to overhaul the system and provide equalised, valued places, and we must ensure that local people have access to them.

Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for your chairmanship. I wish to contribute to this debate by talking about education opportunities that are close to my heart in the creative industries, and the barriers in this country to a creative education. I come to this place as a proud graduate of University of Chichester in my constituency, and I am living proof that a creative qualification can lead someone down many paths, including to this place.

Years of underfunding and poor organisation means that, despite a booming creative industry in the UK, young people are finding it increasingly difficult to attain the education they need to enter the sector, especially through the state system. There has been a significant drop in arts enrolment at A-level, with a 29% decline since 2010. Government grants for arts education have fallen 40% in real terms over the past decade, and the number of those teaching arts-based subjects dropped by 27% between 2011 and 2024.

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests as a trustee of Chichester Festival Theatre, which has a thriving learning, education and participation department, and it is leading the way in giving access to performing arts education to those from underprivileged backgrounds. Pallant House Gallery also has a fantastic education and outreach department, and both Chichester College and the University of Chichester are creating the next generation of creatives who will feed into a creative industry, which the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) mentioned, is worth £126 billion to the economy and creates 2.4 million jobs.

The work that charities and organisations are doing in this space to reduce barriers to opportunity is immeasurable, and their work is at risk if local authorities are not appropriately funded to ensure that their non-statutory obligations are protected. The nature of the English baccalaureate means that it restricts take-up of the creative subjects and adds additional barriers to artistic education, which is why the Liberal Democrats are committed to including arts within it and ensuring Ofsted monitors schools so they provide a broad curriculum, including arts, with links to the creative and digital sectors. That would encourage young people to continue with an arts-based qualification, which is shown to be beneficial to their mental health. It would also improve results in subjects such as English and maths, and attainment in education as a whole.

The UK arts and creative industries are crucial to the UK economy and cultural identity, so there should be no barriers to the educational opportunities the sector can bring. I look forward to hearing the Minister commit to recognising the importance of a creative education.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing the debate and setting the scene. I thank him for being here and giving us all an opportunity to participate.

I have two helpful suggestions for the Minister. If things we have done in Northern Ireland have been successful, I want to share them and tell others about them. In Northern Ireland, the Minister of Education, my DUP colleague Paul Givan, has acknowledged that there are barriers and has implemented a new scheme called the RAISE programme. That it is an important opportunity to look afresh at the issues caused by deprivation and drive forward the whole community. It is a place-based approach to remove the barriers to learning and educational achievement. That is important to us because in Northern Ireland, young, white Protestant boys are not achieving their goals. The Government and the Education Minister recognise that and have set about trying to address it. The Education Minister said:

“My department will now continue to engage with key stakeholders in each RAISE locality through a series of workshops over the coming weeks and months—to identify needs, build the evidence base and bring forward strategic plans for consideration.”

I know the Minister here is always keen to participate. Has she had the opportunity to discuss that programme with Minister Givan, as she might wish to put it in place here too?

I want to reflect on one of the most effective residents’ associations in Strangford. The Scrabo Residents’ Association has a project to build up the confidence of young men within communities, so that they will understand that they can find a job, break the cycle within their family and have pride going to their job. I have met some of those young men; their pride in what they can do is excellent to see.

Government have made funding available for some residents’ groups to do such projects on the ground, thereby giving people jobs. Success stories include HGV driving, and work in factories and in fields. Will the Minister consider some of the things we have done in Northern Ireland, such as the Raise programme and projects that we are pursuing with community groups? With those we can add value, and add value to the local community at the same time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing the debate.

My experience as a maths teacher at a secondary school taught me about the barriers to opportunity that students face. As I have highlighted these issues many times and will continue to do so as a member of the Education Committee, I want to focus today on the lack of support for young carers, primarily because that has been raised by my constituents.

A recent report by the Carers Trust highlights the issues. It spoke to almost 25,000 pupils and 65 young carer services for the report, which highlighted three main concerns. First, caring can have a significant negative impact on education, opportunity and attendance. In 2022-23, young carers on average missed more than a month of their education, which was nine days more than their classmates who were not carers. The report also found that, in England, almost a half of young carers were persistently absent from secondary school that year.

The second area of concern was that many young carers are not spotted or recognised while they are in education. Only a quarter of the respondents to the survey agreed that teachers had a good understanding of their challenges. Although many local young carer services are promoting awareness-raising campaigns, only a third of them said that they had the capacity to give education providers the help they need to identify young carers. The third area highlighted in the report was the inconsistency of support offered to young carers in education. Almost one in four young carers stated that there was no support for them in their college, school or university.

What can we do to tackle that? There are two things I would like to ask the Minister to consider. First, to consider adding young carers to the Department for Education’s daily attendance reporting scheme. That will help to inform schools and local authorities about the young carers who are missing from school and their level of attendance. Secondly, I ask the Minister to consider introducing a young carers’ pupil premium. That would ensure that schools had the funding they need to support all the young carers in their educational institutions. In conclusion, I am very keen to support young carers in our community.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this important debate.

I want to take the opportunity to highlight an issue that affects the future of many children in our communities—the barriers to educational opportunities faced by children in kinship care. In my constituency, 450 children are living in kinship care, placing us in the top 10% in England and Wales. Those children being raised by relatives or close family friends often face significant challenges that can hinder their educational progress. Many have special educational needs or disabilities, including social, emotional and mental health issues. More than one in 10 have been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder.

Those challenges mean that kinship children are much more likely than their peers to attend SEN schools. Kinship children in England alone are over three times more likely to have an EHCP than all other pupils. Despite their needs, kinship children often do not receive the same level of support as those in local authority care. The lack of support can leave them struggling to cope in the classroom and with their post-school opportunities, impacting their ability not only to learn but to thrive. Kinship carers want educators to be better trained to understand the unique challenges that kinship children face, and to provide the support that these children need throughout their lives. It is crucial that we address the barriers and ensure that kinship children receive the support they need to flourish in their educational journey, just to give them a fair crack of the whip. That means improving access to special educational services, providing targeted training for educators and recognising the unique challenges faced by kinship families. By doing so, we can create a more inclusive and supportive educational environment for all children, ensuring that, as we have said in our mission statement, every child, regardless of background or circumstances, has the opportunity to succeed.

I want to finish by asking the Minister a couple of questions, including whether the Government are considering taking any specific actions to support the children in kinship care and whether an assessment has been made of the gap in SEND provision disproportionately affecting children in kinship care.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this important debate.

University is great, but it is not for everyone. We need to have alternatives of equal status, value and quality. West Lothian college in my constituency, under the principal Jackie Galbraith, is a fantastic institution that delivers a range of vocational and non-vocational courses to thousands of pupils and learners every year. But colleges across Scotland have faced a decade of decline under the SNP, with a lack of focus and a lack of funding. Since 2021 there has been a 17% real-terms decline in college funding, with the most recent Scottish budget cutting £32.7 million from the budget for Scottish colleges, including a £12 million cut to student support funding.

However, with a UK Labour Government there is hope for further education in Scotland. The UK Budget delivers an extra £1.5 billion to the Scottish Government this year, and an extra £3.4 billion next year for them to invest in Scottish higher education. The Scottish Government now have the resources to restore Scottish colleges to their full potential, but they must act at pace and with a competence that they have so far not shown in order to do so.

On apprenticeships the picture is no better. The SNP promised to deliver more apprenticeships, but they had to be bounced into funding modern apprenticeships for the next financial year when a press release from the Scottish Training Federation noted how their failure to fund Skills Development Scotland had left

“apprentices, training providers and employers in limbo”.

Across Livingston constituency I have met employers in renewables, house building and the food and drink sector, and all have spoken to me about the lack of apprenticeships in their sectors.

Now that the Scottish Government have the funding, as my colleague in the Scottish Parliament Pam Duncan-Glancy has said, they have “nowhere to hide” from their record on funding for education and apprenticeships. It is finally time for them to show ambition for Scotland and break down the barriers for people across the Livingston constituency and across Scotland.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this debate, which is a crucial opportunity to reflect on the steps that we must now take to open up opportunities for all to thrive.

Employers regularly tell me that they are urgently seeking people equipped not just with the skills of today but the skills of tomorrow. They are preparing for new waves of technology, evolving processes and increased automation—preparing for the future. In my constituency of Southampton Itchen we see great examples of that at the National Oceanography Centre and in the transformative technology at Ocean Infinity. Those and many other organisations embody the future that we are building—an economy fit for the 21st century. Only if we plan with intention and foresight for that future will we be able to break down the barriers to opportunity. That is why it is essential that Ministers take advantage of the upcoming curriculum review and the establishment of Skills England to build the foundations of what my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe has set out today and move away from high stakes assessment, pivoting instead towards providing young people in schools with the academic base and the practical, applicable skills and opportunities that exist today and that inspire and excite them.

What might all that look like? It is a curriculum that is fit for, as hon. Members have said, kids with SEND, those with care experience, and those who are young carers. It is about practical skills, including financial and media literacy. It is about an ambitious approach to work experience. It is about realising the value of early visits to sites of industry and creative companies, which really inspire. It is about building resilience in our children and young people.

In my constituency, Southampton college and Itchen college are working hard to equip young people with the qualifications and skills—the apprenticeships—they need and the preparation they deserve. It is institutions such as these that may benefit from the £300 million cash investment that we announced in the Budget. That kind of targeted support and a revamped programme of study and skills development will drive meaningful change in our communities. As someone for whom education made all the difference, and as the proud husband of a secondary school teacher, I know that it all starts with the foundations of education. We can now look forward to real investment in them.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this important debate. With 4.3 million children living in poverty in the UK and one in four in my constituency, covering Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich, it is an urgent debate. Child poverty latches on to children before they are born, stays with them throughout their educational journey and follows them into adulthood.

We know that education is the key to lifting people out of poverty. UNESCO estimates that world poverty could be cut in half if all adults completed secondary education. It is vital that we tackle each barrier to that outcome head on. There are many barriers to choose from, and we have heard many today. We could discuss high transport costs or low availability of services. We could discuss the effect of poor-quality housing or the lack of available social housing.

As a number of my colleagues have done, I will focus on provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. In the House, we have heard time and again about inadequate provision for young people with SEND. Every young person deserves the opportunity to thrive in an environment that meets their needs. Despite the best intentions of everyone involved, the current system is broken and actively incentivises bad outcomes for everyone. The recently published National Audit Office report clearly sets out the stark inadequacies of a system that has not only lost the confidence of families but is adversarial, causes immense trauma for children and parents, and sets young people up to fail. It is abundantly clear that we need to rebuild the system from the ground up to ensure that it is not just functional, but robust and fully equipped to provide the necessary support for those that need it.

We need more early intervention, and improved teacher training so that schools are better able to identify and adapt to SEN. We need nothing short of a revolution in how mainstream schools, particularly at secondary level, approach SEN, accompanied by more resource provision. We need to increase capacity in our state-run special schools and avoid the use of private schools that cost local authorities five or six times as much per child. Above all, we need to rebuild trust between parents and a system that has failed them for too long.

I am pleased that the Government have made it a priority to put in place a SEN system that will break down barriers to opportunity and ensure that every child can achieve and thrive. I will champion this crucial mission on behalf of my constituents.

Something about under your chairmanship—sorry, I have forgotten the line, Mr Pritchard. My apologies.

No worries at all. I will take anything—within reason.

Thank you, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for bringing forward this really important debate. Education is the best way in the world to bring peace and prosperity, and for people in my constituency of Milton Keynes to get better jobs and have better lives.

In the 1960s, Harold Wilson dreamed of a university of the air. Jennie Lee made that a reality through the Open University, which she chose to base in Milton Keynes—I am very lucky in that. The OU is so important for educational opportunity, because it makes no distinction based on someone’s formal educational qualifications. In fact, it actively encourages those without formal qualifications to come forward and be everything that they can be. It is absolutely crucial for social mobility. More than a quarter of the undergraduates live in the most deprived areas across the UK, and more than 37,000 students last year had some kind of disability, particularly those who had been failed by the current school system and wanted the opportunity to make the most of their lives.

The most important thing about the OU is its flexible learning model, which has been taken forward by many colleges and universities right across the UK and the world, including the Russell Group. At the heart of any ambitious Labour Government is education, education, education for everyone. Being for everyone means that it has to be at the heart of our universities, colleges and schools, and so far this generation is not seeing that investment. I ask the Minister: how will we transform those opportunities for people in Milton Keynes and for my daughters, who are currently going through school?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this debate. As a former senior lecturer at a further education college in Glasgow, I recognise the importance of this issue across the UK, but I will focus my brief remarks on Scotland.

In Scotland we have had 17 years of SNP Government: 17 years of money being spent on projects that have not worked and 17 years of further education being treated as an afterthought. As a former FE lecturer in engineering, I will always place particular value on STEM courses. A once-great industrial nation, Scotland has communities such as mine in Airdrie and Shotts where the industries of the past still shape who we are today, and indeed where we will go in the future. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of the word “opportunity”. Opportunity for a decent education beyond our school years and for well-paid, secure employment is something we may take for granted, but for many in my constituency it is a distant possibility rather than a reality.

I took the time to attend a meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland, my former union, in North Lanarkshire, and hear directly from FE staff. The words “undervalued”, “overworked” and “underpaid” came up again and again. As a former senior lecturer myself, it was tough to hear that the challenges of working in the sector had worsened only a few years after I left, but my passion to see renewed focus on and investment in FE has only strengthened.

The lack of investment is understandable from a Scottish Government that are financially illiterate. We have come to expect this narrow Weltanschauung from them. However, we must understand how it came about: too many people placed at the top of institutions in our country who have never had a trade, never worked their way up learning every aspect of their trade or business, and never understood the basics of how industry works and what technical and human skills are required for a modern workforce.

I attended the Open University—an unashamedly Labour policy—and place significant value on a good education and the importance of opportunity in an individual’s outcomes. I will use my time in this place to fight to eliminate barriers to that, and I look forward to working with hon. Members in doing so. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for securing this important and timely debate.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this debate. As a former teacher in secondary education, like many others here, this issue is a particular passion. There are a multitude of situational, institutional and dispositional barriers that impact people. Those barriers will impact each and every one of us over the course of our lives, and across our constituencies many people will be affected by those barriers layered on top of each other.

I will talk about three types of barrier in particular. They were identified by the former Government, but I believe they need to be tackled by this Government. The first is age. We know that over the course of our lifetimes, many of us might have multiple careers, depending on future election results. Many of our constituents will also have multiple jobs and multiple careers, and they need to be given opportunities in the employment landscape to engage in continuous professional development. They need access to courses—not necessarily university courses, but other types of courses. What can be done to promote continuous professional development in the workplace? We know that is age-related as well.

I want to highlight the fact that BAE Systems, a major employer in my constituency that just invested £200 million extra in the Rochester aerospace division, is promoting continuous professional development within its employment base, as well as additional apprenticeships for those aged 18 and over. That type of large-scale initiative can also link with the Government’s investment strategy around the green new deal, and where we can set the direction of the future and align it with colleges and aspiration.

The second barrier, as many of my colleagues have mentioned, is SEND access. Having met headteachers last week in Holmesdale School and Holborough Lakes in my constituency, I can tell hon. Members now that local authorities, including Kent, are struggling with getting provision into schools and supporting our students. What can we do to ensure that this appalling legacy is redressed?

The final barrier is early years access. One of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government was Sure Start, which gave educational opportunities. We know that if we target students at the very youngest age, outcomes can be positive at the end of their lives. That life course is absolutely critical if we are to get aspiration into our young people, so what will the Government do around early years provision so that we can get support to parents and give educational opportunities to all our young people?

Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for bringing this important discussion to the House.

Like many who have spoken today, I am a former teacher, and I know of the huge impact that a child’s home life can have on educational attainment. I feel it is really important that when we talk about children’s educational attainment, we consider not only exam results, but the wider school experience—sometimes we call it the hidden curriculum. In my constituency of Harlow, there are pockets of high child poverty. Some 17.3% of children in Harlow live in low-income families compared with the Essex average of 12.8%, and we saw that during the terrible pandemic, in which nearly 8,000 families had food parcels delivered to them. This will have a huge impact on children—no child will be able to learn if they are hungry—and I welcome this Government’s pledge of free breakfast clubs in every primary school.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) mentioned, I will speak about a specific group of young people who are often forgotten: young carers. Some 38% of young carers surveyed reported that they regularly miss school because of their caring situation. No young person can learn when they are not in school, and no one can focus with the anxiety of being away from those who they care for. I welcome the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who has pledged to make young carers an integral part of the recently announced youth strategy, and I ask that young carers be a golden thread in any future educational reform.

I recently had the privilege of inviting a group of young carers to Parliament. One young girl highlighted that when she rang up her university and said that she could no longer attend because of her caring commitment, she was not asked any follow-up questions. We also know that young carers are not classified as disadvantaged in education. Another young carer said that he felt there was no description that fitted him when he went to university. When he went on the university’s website, there was no description of a young carer that fitted his young caring abilities.

I will finish with an ask. We know that this lack of awareness of young carers across education and universities needs to be recognised and responded to. I want to see young carer leads as a standard, not an exception.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this important debate.

Barriers to learning and skills development affect not only children and young people in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, but adults. Upskilling is key to economic participation and engagement in the labour market, yet last week, when I met our local Staffordshire chamber of commerce, it highlighted concerns from local employers about a lack of basic skills development among young people and adults at all points in their careers, so it is important that we focus on helping people to achieve those qualifications. Our city council, local further education and independent providers work incredibly hard to upskill adults, and that is reflected in our higher participation rates in further education and skills. Tackling barriers to educational opportunity is really important in promoting social mobility in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, and many of our local schools and colleges focus on and recognise that.

However, as we know, barriers to opportunity are multifaceted. They are linked to deprivation, housing conditions and household income, and improving educational outcomes goes hand in hand with addressing socioeconomic inequality.

Perhaps the most significant barriers to educational opportunity in Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove are the high rates of speech, numeracy and language deficiency in our early years outcomes. As we all know, early years development is a significant predictor of our educational outcomes across the whole life course. Sadly, last year in Stoke-on-Trent, only one in two of our two-year-olds had a good level of development compared with nearly 80% in England, and the level of development locally has been declining for a number of years.

Tackling barriers to educational opportunity begins in the very early years. I hope the Minister will agree that investment in our early years is critical to tackling those barriers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate.

I want to focus on the importance of the fabric of the buildings in which we deliver our educational opportunities, and on one particular school in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent South—Trentham academy. I have been a teacher for 30 years, and I was astonished at what I saw when I visited recently. I met the headteacher, Mr Mike Whittingham, to discuss the Trentham academy estate and to see for myself the challenges that it has faced.

I will say at the outset that Trentham is an excellent school. It has achieved a “good” Ofsted rating, with “outstanding” in some areas, and it is highly oversubscribed. The 750-capacity school already has more than 790 pupils, and last year it received 580 applications for new students as the first choice of parents. It delivers excellent education. It has a strong ethos, the teachers are smiling and it is a great little school, so when I visited I could not have been more shocked at the state of it. There are rotting floors and mould in some classrooms. There are annual rat infestations, with fly infestations following. Rats and other vermin have repeatedly fallen into classrooms, into teachers’ hair and, worst of all, into their cups of tea, which is enough of an excuse in itself to rebuild the school.

There are only five female toilet cubicles, three male cubicles and 11 cubicles in a unisex toilet, which I would not enter—not because it is unisex, but because it is just not fit for purpose. It is technically against building regulations, and the disabled accessible toilets are inadequate. Legislation says that there must be one toilet per 20 pupils. Trentham academy currently has one toilet per 40 pupils, and I would not go in some of those. I could continue. Another issue is the poor fire doors and the real fire safety risks.

I welcome the school rebuilding fund, with £2.4 billion for school maintenance and £1.4 billion for school rebuilding. I ask the Minister merely for the money to rebuild the school, and I assure her that we will deliver a cracking school with great education, and fill the desperate need for extra secondary school places in Stoke-on-Trent.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing such an important and wide-ranging debate. Tackling barriers to educational opportunity is critical to everything—to the lives of our young people, to the strength of our economy, and to the future of our country and society. Given the breadth of the topic, I hope Members will forgive me for not being able to cover everything in depth, but I will try to cover as much territory as I can.

Children face all sorts of barriers to the education they deserve, whether that is growing up in poverty at home, or getting the necessary support for special educational needs, disabilities or mental ill health. Some children may grow up in foster care, and more than 140,000 grow up in kinship care, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) discussed. They may be young carers, which the hon. Members for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) and for Harlow (Chris Vince) mentioned. None of their needs should be forgotten—everything from hunger, to abuse, to the damaging impact of social media should be taken into account. They are all barriers that young people face in their education today.

It is not just about children at school; the vital role of education starts in the early years and continues throughout people’s lives. Indeed, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe opened the debate by focusing on adult education and skills, which is vital at a time when the demands of our economy are changing so rapidly and unpredictably. It has never been more important that adults have the opportunities they need to learn new skills so that they can get well-paid, secure new jobs. I look forward to seeing the detail that the new Government bring forward in their reform of the apprenticeship levy and their review of the reform of level 3 qualifications. I also hope they will look at boosting apprenticeship pay for young people, which is out of step with the national minimum wage.

Rather than speak about all those things in any detail, I will focus on a few barriers and offer a few solutions that I hope the Minister will consider carefully. One of the biggest barriers to educational opportunities is, of course, poverty. With just over 4 million children in the UK estimated to be living in poverty, that equates to nine in every classroom. In a country like ours, that is utterly shameful. Many hon. Members who are former teachers will recognise the phrase often said to me when I go into schools, which is that school staff see themselves as the fourth emergency service as they deal with poverty and the social issues that brings. Whether it is children living in poor housing, with poor health or with challenging relationships at home, we all hear from teachers who spend time helping disadvantaged pupils with food, uniforms and other basics that their families are struggling to provide. That simply cannot go on.

I suggest to the Minister that there are three ways to tackle poverty, and child poverty in particular. First, we should abolish the cruel two-child benefit cap, which denies more than one and a half million children and their families the support they deserve. Its abolition would lift some 300,000 children out of poverty immediately, giving them the chance to learn, to grow and to access the life chances that are available to some of their more well-off classmates.

Secondly, we should extend eligibility for free school meals. Food poverty poses a particular barrier to education: hungry children struggle to learn and they often struggle with their behaviour. They face a fundamental barrier that many of their classmates may be lucky enough to avoid, and there is simply no excuse in 2024 for a child to be hungry at school. By expanding free school meals to all children in poverty, we could ensure that 900,000 children are no longer at risk of being hungry in the afternoon and having to learn on an empty stomach. I urge the Minister to make that commitment.

If that is too big an ask of the Chancellor, a good first step would be the auto-enrolment of all those who are eligible for free school meals. In Lib Dem-led Durham county council, the introduction of auto-enrolment this academic year has already led to some 2,500 extra children receiving a hot, healthy meal in the middle of the school day. All the evidence tells us that those children will have improved educational and health outcomes.

Thirdly, we should tackle the attainment gap through a tutoring guarantee. The attainment gap between disadvantaged and more well-off pupils has widened every year since 2020. The evidence is clear that tutoring can be highly effective in improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged young people. Small-group tutoring showed its value under the national tutoring programme, which was poorly implemented at first, but when school leaders were empowered to deliver it, the evidence has shown that tutoring does not just lead to improved attainment but can help to build pupils’ confidence and benefit their attendance, which is currently such a big problem in our schools. Funding for tutoring ran out in July this year, so will the Government commit to a national tutoring guarantee, so that every disadvantaged pupil can access the support they need? It would be a small step with a huge impact that would help to break down one of the biggest barriers to education in our society today.

Hon. Members have spoken about the huge crisis in our special educational needs and disabilities system, which affects one in six pupils. Only 17% of SEND pupils achieve grade 5 or above at GCSE in English and Maths, compared with 51% of other pupils, and they are much more likely to be suspended or permanently excluded. At the beginning of last year, when I visited Feltham young offender institution, the vast majority of young men there had special educational needs and were out of education for a lot of their childhood.

There is simply not enough mainstream support available at school. Coupled with a lack of specialist provision, that has left many children languishing at home without proper access to education. This is an enormous challenge that deserve many debates of its own, and we have had many well-subscribed debates in this place since the general election. Indeed, last month I secured an urgent question on the National Audit Office report that has been mentioned. I urge the Minister to look again at Liberal Democrat proposals for a new national body for SEND to support children with the most complex needs, for more training and specialists to identify needs early, and for speeding up the building of state special schools.

We know that SEND is closely related to poor mental health services. Our mental health services are struggling to keep pace with demand, and there is huge unmet need. Research conducted by the Liberal Democrats earlier this year revealed that over 300,000 children are stuck on a mental health waiting list. Many of those children will struggle to learn properly and will almost certainly experience their condition getting worse while they are waiting for support. With the number of children with a diagnosable mental health condition now hitting one in five, putting a dedicated mental health professional in every school, both primary and secondary, is urgent.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) made a brief comment on the early years sector, which has not been talked about much in the debate. After years of Conservative underfunding of the early years sector, the Labour Government are introducing a national insurance rise that will hit many private and not-for-profit early years providers. The Early Years Alliance said this could

“push the sector to the brink of collapse.”

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about whether she is pressing her colleagues in the Treasury to ensure that sufficient funding is available, so that parents do not have to foot the bill once again and more disadvantaged parents and their children are not forced out of early years provision, because the early years are when we can make the biggest impact on educational attainment.

I recognise that all these solutions cost money, but it is time we stopped seeing our children as a cost item in a profit and loss account. It is time we saw our children and young people and their education as one of the best investments we can make—an investment in the potential of every individual, in our society and in our economy. This Government cannot be serious about growth if they do not invest in educational opportunity.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing the debate and on his focus on the specific issue—it was a very good speech. I echo the commendation from him and the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) of the work of colleges and the important things they do.

I will get the ding-dong out the way. I gently point out to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe that apprenticeship starts under the Conservatives went up quite considerably from 2010 to 2022-23, from 279,000 to 337,000. I am sure he will want to reflect that in his closing remarks. I also want to pick up on something said by the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin). We are never going to get anywhere if we talk about a toxic legacy on education under the Conservatives. We all want to make progress on this stuff. In 2010, we were behind Germany and France in PISA; now we are ahead. Obviously, we can contrast that with what happened in Wales and Scotland.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) was absolutely right that the SNP has failed to close the gap for disadvantaged children. If we are going to make progress, which we all want to do, on raising educational standards and helping disadvantaged children, it is important to look at why some things have gone well, and one of the reasons is a knowledge-based curriculum. I say to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) that we need to be careful about what we do in this area, because the worst thing we can do for disadvantaged children is dilute academic standards.

I will get to the meat of the debate now because I think I have covered that. We are all interested in the number of apprenticeships going up. I would be interested to know from the Minister how much apprenticeship start numbers will go up and whether the Government stand by the pledge to spend up to 50% of the apprenticeship levy on other types of training. That was committed to before the election. I am not clear as to whether that is still the case now, so it would be helpful for the Minister to give some clarification on that specific point.

I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) that once skills have gone, it is very difficult to get them back. What is the Minister doing to safeguard specific high-value and rare skills, particularly in the craft area? I hope she answers correctly the brilliant contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on free school meals, holiday activities and breakfast clubs, all of which are crucial to driving forward the progress of disadvantaged children.

I share interest in the question asked by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) on when the children’s wellbeing Bill will be introduced. The Lib Dem spokesman, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), mentioned the importance of driving down the number of absences, which we absolutely want to do on a cross-party basis. We will very much support the register, which I believe is going to be in that Bill, but when will that Bill be brought forward and how does the Minister intend to make it work?

The speeches made about young carers by the hon. Members for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) and for Harlow (Chris Vince) were very moving and absolutely right, and I am interested in the Minister’s comments on them. The mention by the hon. Member for Twickenham of state special schools was important. I was pleased to see that they have not been paused, but given the speech given last week by the Secretary of State, will the Minister confirm that she still believes in the principle of having separate special schools? Will they be continued and will parents have the choice as to whether they send their kids to them?

I very much echo the comments from the hon. Member for Twickenham about the importance of early years. I will quibble with her about the funding that has gone into early years, which obviously increased massively under the last Government, but we have a real problem now with early years funding. The national insurance contributions change will have a significant impact on the sector. It will means that, in contrast to what the Prime Minister said today, costs for parents will go up. Also, childcare provision has had no guarantees that the Government’s funding formula will include provision for the increased cost from NICs. Obviously, under the previous Government we set it up so that the minimum wage increases will be taken into account. Will the Minister please confirm today that the increased costs from employers’ national insurance contributions will be taken into account by the Government in the funding formula? Otherwise, we are going to have a real crisis with provision. The Minister needs to recognise that and take it away if she cannot answer now.

More broadly, this has been a helpful and interesting debate. Education is an area where we need to work together to make progress for disadvantaged children. I say to all Labour Members that the Conservatives will drive that forward by insisting on high academic standards and the rigorous holding to account of schools for their performance, and by ensuring that the curriculum is knowledge based and drives children forward. We will support the Government if they seek to drive up apprenticeship starts and improve vocational education, and we will work as hard as we can with them on improving the current absence rates, because we know they are hitting disadvantaged children.

Order. Before I call the Minister, I should say that if she wants to make time for the mover of the motion to have a minute or two at the end, I think we have time, if she is so minded.

It is a real honour to respond to this debate on this important matter, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing it, and for its wide scope as well.

I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions—I will try to answer their wide remarks and questions as best I can—and I want to mention a few. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) mentioned kinship carers and SEND, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) also talked about SEND. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) talked about the need for buildings, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about adding value. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) talked about issues in the creative industries, and the Government’s response to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) spoke about early years, and there have also been conversations about young carers, breakfast clubs and so on.

The Government believe that the opportunity to enjoy a good life with a great job, and to secure a home, should belong to everyone. Every child and young person should have the opportunity to succeed, no matter who they are, where they are from or how much their parents earn, but as a nation we are yet to fulfil that promise. A person’s background often counts more towards success than effort and enterprise, and too many children are held back by the circumstances they are born into. Children from the lowest-earning families, those from diverse backgrounds, those with special educational needs and disabilities, those with experience of the care system and young carers face too many barriers to building the best life they can.

Too many children and young people grow up seeing success as something that happens to others, but it also belongs to them. That is why this new Government will be a mission-led one, with a defining mission to break the unfair link between background and opportunity. The opportunity mission will build opportunity for all by giving every child the best start in life. It will help them achieve, thrive and build skills for opportunity and growth, and will ensure security.

Building skills for opportunity and growth is key to the opportunity mission. From the age of 16 onwards lies the transition into the world of work and future opportunities. We will ensure that every young person can follow the pathway that is right for them, whether that is through high-quality apprenticeships, colleges or universities, including Open university. The right skills and courses give people the ability to progress into good jobs and not shy away from opportunity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe focused mostly on skills and technical education. I assure all hon. Members that the Government are focused on opportunities for everyone, whatever their background, age, ability and identity. We are ambitious for children and young people, and for their aspirations. Our higher education system is globally recognised for its excellence, which is great. The Government recognise that university is right for many, but that it is not the only option. Apprenticeships and skills are absolutely the right option for others. That is why we are determined to get it right and support young people who wish to take that path. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that under 14 years of Conservative Government, the number of apprenticeships has plummeted. The apprenticeship levy was exposed as inadequate.

Will the Minister give way?

I have so much to get through that I am afraid I cannot.

Skills policy has too often been made in isolation, leading to a system that is confusing for employers and individuals, and that does not lead to the right jobs for our population. Skills shortage vacancies in England more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, from 226,500 to 531,200. Too few young people—indeed, people of all ages—have been able to gain the benefits of a quality post-16 education. Those figures are shocking.

We need to do so much more to ensure that people do not face unemployment, low wages and poor health outcomes. The lack of a clear plan has led to widespread skill shortages in areas such as construction, manufacturing, hospitality, information and communication, healthcare and social care. That is why meeting the skill needs of the next decade is central to delivering the Government’s five missions: economic growth, opportunity for all, a stronger NHS, safer streets and clean energy. We aim to create a clear, flexible, high-quality skills system that supports people of all ages, breaks down barriers to opportunity and drives economic growth.

We have not stood still. Last month’s Budget included an investment of an additional £300 million in further education to ensure that young people develop the skills they need. It also included £950 million of skills capital funding, including £300 million to ensure that college estates are in good condition so they meet students’ learning needs. We have also commenced a curriculum and assessment review, which is now in full swing with roadshows up and down the country. It will deliver a curriculum that is rich in knowledge, strong in skills and led by evidence. We have announced the youth guarantee, which will help to ensure that young people have the opportunity to acquire the skills that they need.

We will reform the apprenticeship levy into a growth and skills levy to deliver greater flexibility for both learners and employers. As a first step we will introduce foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door. The new foundation apprenticeships will support clear progression pathways into further work-based training and sustained employment. We will support and fill the pipeline of new talent that employers need. We are investing £40 million to support the development and delivery of foundation apprenticeships, as well as apprenticeships of a shorter duration that will provide further flexibility for employers, as so many have called for.

We have also listened to feedback about qualifications; concerns were expressed about the rapid pace of reforms from the previous Government, about the quality of qualifications and about how they do not always serve students well. This Government are determined to do better—and indeed we will. We have therefore announced a short-term internal review of qualifications reform, which clearly signals our intention to balance the range of concerns and to provide clarity in the qualifications landscape. We believe that this is the best way to support students, unlock opportunity, harness talent and drive growth.

We have introduced Skills England in shadow form. It will ensure we have the highly trained workforce needed to deliver national, regional and local skills for the next decade, aligned with the upcoming industrial strategy. Skills England will ensure that there is a comprehensive choice of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access. Skills England will ensure that the skills system is clear, and that both young people and older adults can navigate it, strengthening career pathways into jobs across the economy. It will increase the quality and quantity of skills development in the workplace by providing an authoritative assessment of national and regional skills needs in the economy, now and in the future.

Moving to the school rebuilding programme, this Government have increased next year’s capital allocation to improve school buildings to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. We have also committed to £1.4 billion to support the current school rebuilding programme to deliver 518 projects across England.

Many issues have been raised about children with special educational needs and disabilities and the anxieties of their parents. On reform, this Government’s ambition is that all children and young people with SEND will receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We are committed to improving inclusiveness and expertise in mainstream schools, and to ensuring that special school provision continues to meet children’s most complex needs. That will restore parents’ trust, as they will know that their child is getting the support they desperately need. We will work with the sector, as it is essential that we join our valued partners in that shared vision.

There were questions about free school meals and ensuring that children are eligible. We have a mission to break down the barriers to opportunity, and to confront child poverty. The continued provision of free school meals to disadvantaged children plays an important role in that. The Government spend around £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for over 3 million pupils. As with all Government programmes, we will keep our approach open and continue to review it. It remains our ambition that no child should go hungry.

We are also doing a child poverty review. The new child poverty ministerial taskforce will drive cross-Government action on child poverty, starting by overseeing the development of an ambitious child poverty strategy, which will be published next spring. The taskforce publication of 23 October, “Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy”, sets out our framework for how the strategy will be developed, harnessing all available levers to deliver a reduction in child poverty in this Parliament as part of our ambitious 10-year strategy, which addresses its root causes.

On breakfast clubs, we will remove barriers to opportunities by ensuring that every primary school pupil, no matter their circumstance, is well prepared for school. From April 2025, free breakfast clubs will be available for up to 750 early adopters ahead of the national roll-out. Early adopters will allow us to identify and tackle barriers to implementing the full breakfast club roll-out. That is the first step in our commitment to enable breakfast clubs in all primary schools.

Before the Minister moves on, my main question on breakfast clubs was about what happens to the national school breakfast programme for secondary and special schools. We have heard a lot about primary schools, but we have not heard much about secondary and special schools in disadvantaged areas. Is she in a position to tell us a little more about that?

This Government are committed to tackling child poverty. As I have already outlined as regards the poverty taskforce, many of the issues and areas are continuing to be reviewed and worked out. We are determined to bring down child poverty. On the specific areas the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, more information will be coming, but I am afraid he will have to be patient, as we had to be patient for the past 14 years.

I also add that through the children’s wellbeing Bill, which has been mentioned, the Government will look to introduce further strategies for improving the outcomes for children and young people, and to make the reform and changes that we need. The Bill will be introduced, as parliamentary time allows, and we appreciate Members’ patience.

Time is quickly moving on and running out. I could say so much more about so many other areas that were mentioned, but I am afraid I will have to move to a close. We will try to respond where we can, but I ask Members, please, to continue to write in and ask questions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for securing the debate on such an important matter and I hope the House appreciates that I made every attempt to respond.

I thank the Minister for her response and everyone present for their contributions to this important debate. Members have highlighted an inheritance of widening inequality, increasing child poverty, narrowing opportunities and an education system crying out for change. They have also highlighted that the Government’s proposals for reform give us cause for optimism: the curriculum review, Skills England, reform of the apprenticeship levy, improved teacher training on SEND, free breakfast clubs in primary schools and a properly funded education system.

There are of course particular barriers to opportunity. We heard, for example, from my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) on SEND; my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on young carers; my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on kinship carers; and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) on poor school buildings. There is a long way to go.

To respond to the points made by Opposition Members, after the apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017, there was a 31% fall in apprenticeship starts. That fact cannot be denied; it is a fact that is being responded to by this Government, and it is part of the inheritance that we are actively addressing. I am proud to be a Labour MP supporting a Labour Government. We are the party that introduced Sure Start, the single most effective measure for reducing child poverty. The measures we are taking will help ensure that every child, regardless of background, has access to the opportunities that they deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling barriers to educational opportunities.