Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, this is one of those debates where the report, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, described, seems to address only certain aspects of the issue. But as she also described, if it did not, we would be here all week. We are looking at key aspects, among which we have concentrated on the rise of the NEET. We have paid attention to NEETs, and this debate is rather an extension of one I was in yesterday. The rise of the NEET is something that we have identified for over a decade at least. They are a group of people who do not become involved in education or work. Something has happened in our society that makes this possible. Covid undoubtably accelerated the process slightly—it may have even established it—but it was already there. There is something about the way that we are structuring our education and society that is encouraging this group to grow. I hope that we can start to address it properly. We will not do that by repeating the policies of the last decade ad nauseam; we will have to change something. I always go back to special educational needs and dyslexia, and if the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, had a small bet with herself that I would raise it, she has won it. It comes to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, raised, English and maths. The Latin origin of the word dyslexia—no, it is Greek. Sorry, I did not do classics. The Greek origin of the word translates to a problem with words. It is not; it is a problem with processing, which expresses itself in problems with literacy and reading—more prominently writing than reading, which are two separate skills. Maths is a language, and processing problems can express themselves there. Many of the solutions we have found are in encouraging and immersing people in the subject. You tend to scan read, so you get a new function. In the modern world, we use technology to produce literature and to communicate. I have not yet met anybody who would object to somebody talking to a computer to get communication going, as opposed to tapping a keyboard. If there is somebody, they probably will be waiting for me at the end of the debate, but I will have very short shrift for them. Please, can we start to establish what is needed with literacy and mathematics? In training and so on, we have found that for all these groups, if you test them on the language or the maths that they are going to use in their career, they do better. Please, can we address that and work it in? The level 1 qualification, which was hinted at by the last Government and now seems to be being implemented, may well be enough for a person to go through the rest of their training. Could we please work that in? Could we make sure that everybody uses a computer all the time? In the past, I have raised that, in terms of education, the phone in your pocket may be a distraction because of the technology on it. It also can carry assistive technology. It carries voice operation and a calculator. We may have to do other things, but it is there, it fits in your pocket and we all have them with us. I hope that mine has been switched off. We have to start addressing this differently. When it comes to the process and the system—my noble friend Lady Garden raised this, as she often has before—changing the names of the qualifications may be great, and you may get slightly different qualifications, but let us make sure that they work properly. T-levels had an incredibly bumpy start. Because of the work experience required, there were some courses that nobody finished. V-levels are not as big. Yes, I did find out the figure. It was only one course. The V-level will fit slightly more easily into the existing system, but can we make sure that it works? The BTEC qualification, which has generally been accepted, seems to be the primary target. You are going to get a diverse set of qualifications for a diverse workplace. Even if they have the same name, they will be very different, because they have to be. Can we make sure that we get things that are appropriate and that people have appropriate pathways? The great engine of social mobility, certainly one that was preached to me, was university. At the moment, universities are getting very bad press. You will get in a big debt with it. There is not much support. The Government are taking steps to make sure that they remain attractive. However, universities have also become a sacred cow. We all had to get to university, or half of us had to, and we elbowed out levels 4 and 5 HND and NVQ courses. They were devalued by that drive. Newer universities, when they stopped being polytechnics or colleges, tended to push those aside and dump them. Can we encourage universities to take on some of these level 4 and 5 qualifications? Let us bring them all up to the same social status. Many of them were there, and non-graduating courses are an important part of the history of our universities. Can we bring that in to make sure they have the social status and support they need? We need to make sure they are going through. However, all this is impossible unless you are letting people know what is there, and careers advice is mentioned in the report. It is one of my personal favourites, so I would have liked to see that made a little bigger but hey, you can only do so much. Can we make sure we get this information to the parents or the carers in these groups, because they are the important ones? Some of those we are talking about here may not have people who are engaged in this. It is about social mobility; if you come from a group which has low attainment in academia, you are less likely to acquire it yourself. You are also less likely to acquire somebody who is pushing you forward to do it. Have the Government given any thought to how you get people to engage with that advice, or give it properly, to make sure that from a fairly early age you know what the options are? Age 16 is effectively too late in this context. You have to get somebody who is geared up and prepared to take on that effort, that investment of time, energy and money, to get themselves there, particularly if you do not find it easy or you have extra problems. I refer back to my comments on dyslexia; other special educational needs are available, I am told. Can we make sure that we actually have somebody who knows what is going on, and structures to try to reach people? This is not easy. We are talking about parents who may have found that their own educational experience was something best forgotten. If we can start to do that, much of the work of this Government and the previous ones becomes, shall we say, so much easier. That engagement will lead us to some real results. It is a big ask, but I hope the Minister will give us a positive response and tell us how this is at least being started.