Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)

My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for initiating this important debate and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in it. What has come through is very clear: this is not simply a debate around qualifications. This has been a debate around opportunity, social mobility and economic growth. The central question for me is this: how do we ensure that every young person, whatever their background or postcode, has a genuine route to meaningful work, as we heard earlier, further education or a secure future and do not—as many noble Lords mentioned, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Alexander—become NEET with all the issues that Alan Milburn has identified? We look forward to his second report. For too long, the education system has presented universities as the default measure of ambition while vocational education has too often been treated as second best. University is absolutely the right choice for many young people, but it should not be the only route to success. We have heard that clearly in the debate today. A young person who wants to become an engineer, an electrician, a technician, a care professional or a builder should be able to pursue that ambition through a high-quality technical or vocational route and have the same status and respect as someone pursuing an academic degree. That is why I remain attracted to the dual system model that combines classroom learning with sustained structural workplace experience. We can learn from other countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, at the start of the debate. Their vocational system demonstrates the value of giving young people both theoretical knowledge and practical competence. That additional workplace experience matters. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, about some of us practising what we preach by giving young people the opportunity to shadow us. I have had one young person, Louie Xenos, shadowing me this week and she is watching the debate. She helped to formulate not only this speech but my Oral Question. It is important that we create work experience opportunities for young people and then go out and advocate for them within industry because, too often, young people are told that they lack experience when the very businesses employing them are the ones that do not give them the opportunity to gain that experience. How can we tell a young person that they need experience when we have failed to give them that opportunity, as I mentioned earlier? No vocational system will succeed unless employers are properly incentivised to participate. I would like to see strong incentives for employers to recruit young people facing the greatest barriers, including care leavers, young people with SEND and those who have experienced alternative provision. Young people furthest from the labour market—I note the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, about white working-class young people—cannot be those least likely to receive their first opportunity. We must look into the findings of that report and see how we can help that cohort of young people. We also need to move away from a culture of short-term recruitment and low retention. Training should be seen as an investment in people and in the future workforce rather than as a simple cost. That is why I support greater flexibility in the growth and skills levy. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, at the beginning of the debate, small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, need a system that allows them to use training and support for the skills their workforce and the local economy generally require. If we want vocational education to succeed, as we heard from many noble Lords, we must also fund further education properly. As my noble friend Lady Garden said, further education colleges often work with young people who have the greatest need, yet they continue to face significant financial pressures. We should extend pupil premium-style support into post-16 education so that disadvantage does not stop counting when a young person leaves school. They still have those needs. We must also ensure that FE colleges are treated fairly financially, including through the ability to reclaim VAT so that they are not placed at a disadvantage with sixth forms. We should also encourage partnerships rather than competition between institutions. Collaboration between universities and FE colleges can open opportunities that neither can provide alone. We should also recognise that education does not end at 21. People change careers. People lose their jobs. They may become carers. Industries may disappear, and new industries emerge. That is why lifelong learning matters. The lifelong learning entitlement has the potential to give adults greater opportunities to retrain and upskill, but lifelong learning must mean more than lifelong borrowing. People from disadvantaged backgrounds must be able to access opportunities without financial barriers preventing them participating. We also cannot seriously address young people being outside education or employment without addressing mental health and other barriers. For some young people, the problem is not a lack of ambition. It may be poor mental health, disability, caring responsibilities, poverty, lack of confidence, or simply not having anyone to help them navigate the complicated system, as we heard earlier about career services in schools. That is why organisations such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award are so valuable. Volunteering, physical activity, developing practical skills and working as part of a team can build confidence, resilience, leadership and well-being. Those opportunities are particularly important for young people who may not have the same networks or advantages as their peers. Finally, I want to turn to regional growth and devolution. The skills needs of a place like Sheffield, where I am from, are not identical to those of Manchester, Cornwall or London. In South Yorkshire we need to think about advanced manufacturing, engineering, construction, clean energy and the future of our steel industry. Others may have other priorities. The people who understand those needs best are the ones that are closest—the local employers, colleges, universities, councils and combined authorities. I therefore welcome the direction of travel towards greater regional decision-making that we have heard from the Prime Minister. But devolution must mean real power, real resources and real accountability. We should not simply devolve responsibility while keeping the important decisions and funding in Whitehall. There is a danger that we focus on qualifications, structures and funding mechanisms and forget the individual young person at the centre of them—the young person who leaves school without the grades expected of them; the care leaver navigating adulthood without a stable family network; the young person with SEND who wants to work but needs the right support; the adult who needs to retrain because the industry they have worked in for years is changing. They do not simply need more choices on paper; they need a route that actually works. From these Benches, I make five simple demands. First, to give vocational education the status it deserves; secondly, to make further education a genuine pillar of our education system; thirdly, to give employers the incentives and flexibility to create meaningful training and employment opportunities, particularly for those facing disadvantage; fourthly, to integrate skills with mental health, employment and wider support, because people’s lives do not fit neatly into departmental boundaries; and finally, to devolve power and funding so that regions can build the skills systems their economies and communities actually need. Opportunity should not depend on postcodes, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, and others; nor should ambition be defined by whether someone chooses a university lecture theatre or a workshop floor. A successful education system recognises talent wherever it exists, gives people the skills they need to use their talent, and gives them a genuine opportunity to succeed. That is the education and skills system we should all aspire to build.