Education Bill

I, along with Opposition colleagues, have tabled amendment 27 to require the Secretary of State to"““produce a transition plan…from the current system of careers guidance to the new all-age careers service.'." How that transition is handled—all of it—is vital. First, I want to welcome the Government's plans for an all-age careers service, but I emphasise the importance of careers advice. It is the bridge from education to work, fundamentally signposting the match between an individual and a job or a journey into education and fulfilment. As those choices become ever more sophisticated, an accompanying sophistication of knowledge and know-how is needed to enable a student to navigate their way, so that all young people—this is what makes me want to speak today—from all backgrounds and of all abilities, interests and ambitions can achieve their goal in life. I believe that this transition has come at a critical and crucial time. We know that youth unemployment is particularly high, covering 1 million people across the country aged between 16 and 24 and 160,000 in the north-west, the highest in any region. In Wirral, 16.8% of those aged between 16 and 19 are not in education, training or work. At a time of incredibly high youth unemployment, opportunities and changes are opening up, too. There are changing opportunities in apprenticeships and what they have to offer, in tertiary education, in voluntary work, in work experience, in setting up a business or even in travelling around the world and doing something with charities elsewhere—so we have the double impact of high unemployment and changing opportunities. On a personal note, I meet approximately 400 schoolgirls every week from all backgrounds and not only are they confused about their options and what they want to do, but they have an inner confusion, too. They do not know what is out there or whether they have the confidence or ability to do it, and they now need to ask whether they can get direction to help them. Those young girls tell me that they need role models and that they need to meet people who have done a job for real. They need to be able to choose a job and to get interested in it, and a person will need to tease out that interest and to show them those opportunities. This transition must be right. People leaving school at a vulnerable time need the right options to be put in front of them and that must be delivered through proper careers advice. It is also a vulnerable time for people working in the profession and giving out careers advice. This is not just about their knowledge and know-how—this is a subject they love and about which they are passionate. We must not lose the knowledge on the internet, but we must also not lose those people and their personal knowledge. We cannot let something so vital slip through our fingertips when it was within our grasp and when we had the ability to save it.