My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11. Before doing so, however, I want to touch on a point that the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Storey, made about sharia-compliant loans. I can remember a time so far back it was before the Minister was even in your Lordships’ House, during the debate on the Higher Education and Research Act. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, will remember, because he was very active in that. At that time, the issue of sharia loans came up. That finished immediately prior to the 2017 general election, six years ago. Why on earth has it taken so long? I suspect the Minister will not have the answers now, but someone in the Department for Education—or maybe the Treasury—should have. The answers must be found, it cannot be that difficult. Basically, I echo what other noble Lords have said: get a move on because it is a problem that surely cannot be insuperable.
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I shall say a bit about my amendment now. Amendment 11 would mandate the Secretary of State to undertake a review on the impact of defunding level 3 courses. The need for this relates to the Government’s defunding of many of them, changes which many people believe will result in a drastic reduction in 16 to 18 year-old students being able to learn and achieve at level 3, because many will see no option that is attractive to them in the sector, trade or profession they want to pursue.
I mentioned the Higher Education and Research Act, and I now invoke the Skills and Post-16 Education Act. Just over a year ago, many noble Lords will recall
a series of amendments to that then Bill on the question of defunding BTECs and AGQs. They were successful in your Lordships’ House, but ultimately overturned in another place. This led to the then Secretary of State for Education issuing a series of commitments to ensure that the Bill was passed, the most important of which was that only
“a small proportion of the total level 3 BTEC and other applied general style qualification offer—significantly less than half”
would be removed. These commitments were echoed by the Minister in your Lordships’ House.
In January this year, however, the Government finally published a guide to their qualification approval process, which included a much more limited than anticipated list of subjects that they will fund from 2025. When that list is mapped against 134 applied general qualifications that are currently available to young people, 74 will not be funded in the future. However you characterise that, it is not a small proportion. This change of approach is described in the DfE’s own guide—also published in January—as
“a conscious choice by Ministers to further streamline the qualifications landscape and to ensure that wherever A levels and T Levels exist, students are channelled to these highest quality options”.
This “conscious choice” will have a hugely damaging effect on student choice, because 69% of students currently enrolled in an AGQ—about 350,000—are studying qualifications that will be scrapped before the approval process begins. This figure is certain to rise even higher by the time this process concludes. While the Government would like T-levels to replace BTECs, just 15,000 students are enrolled on T-levels, despite more than £1 billion of public investment in them since 2017.
I stress that this amendment is not anti T-levels. I am not anti T-levels; I genuinely want them to succeed. However, colleges across the country are extremely concerned about the impact of the Government’s plans to defund these qualifications, both for the effect on reduced opportunities for young people to which I referred, and even for the future financial viability of some colleges. Additionally, if fewer learners achieve level 3 qualifications, this could lead to decreasing participation at levels 4 and 5. This would negatively impact the number of people able to take advantage of the lifelong loan entitlement, which would surely frustrate the Government’s intention in its introduction.
Noble Lords may be aware that the shadow Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, has said that a future Labour Government would pause the cull of BTECs and review the process. Unfortunately, we are not quite there yet, but that point should be noted.
If the Minister and her officials are so confident—as they have been in our previous discussions on this matter—that the damage the sector warns of will not happen, then she should not have any hesitation in accepting this amendment, because a review would surely vindicate her optimism.
To finish—it has become a cliché but like many clichés, there is an element of truth in it—I believe we should be defending BTECs, not defunding them.