The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Jane Hutt, and amendment 2 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives debate on adult and community learning, and I call on Darren Millar to move the motion.

Motion NDM6340 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Recognises the vital contribution that part-time higher education makes to the Welsh economy, especially in our most disadvantaged communities.

2. Supports initiatives such as Adult Learners Week and recognises the importance of adult and community learning opportunities to Wales.

3. Welcomes the proposed support package for part-time higher education and part-time students put forward in the Welsh Government’s response to the Diamond Review.

4. Calls upon the Welsh Government to:

a) Provide an all-age careers advisory and education service which gives parity of esteem to full and part-time study options, supports progression for people in low wage employment, and recognises the wider benefits of adult and community learning to improving health and well-being; and

b) invest in adult community learning to enable pathways for all into, and through, further and higher education.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I’m very pleased to be leading this debate this afternoon on behalf of the Welsh Conservative group. Before I go into my comments this afternoon, can I declare an interest as a part-time HE student here in Wales? Further and higher education has a broad and beneficial impact on our Welsh economy and society, but it’s not just those who are aged under 24 who can contribute to this positive impact. That’s why I’m glad, fresh on the back of Adult Learners’ Week last week, that we have the opportunity to debate the current and future role that part-time education and lifelong learning plays in the developing nature of our country and its people.

Before I develop my contribution, I just want to address the amendments that have been tabled. We will be supporting amendment 2. Plaid Cymru are quite right to highlight the level of uncertainty that our FE and HE institutions are experiencing because of the Welsh Government’s failure to confirm its proposals for student support and higher education funding for 2018-19. We firmly believe that there needs to be a proper three-year financial package and plan in place. But in terms of amendment 1, while I hear what the Government is trying to say about its plans for the future, I do believe that Careers Wales as it stands simply is not fit for purpose. It’s hugely under-resourced and it’s not delivering the sort of independent and bespoke advice that our learners need at the moment, so we will be opposing that amendment.

So, whilst there’s quite rightly a focus on full-time further and higher education, this, I’m afraid, has come at a price of it becoming the assumed default mode of provision. When society thinks of students, I think it’s fair to say that most of us commonly associate this with a picture of those going straight from school into university or college. But a significant and growing number of adults wish to begin or to continue further or higher education at a different stage in their life, and we’ve got many people who need to overcome challenges to enable them to study. Negotiating their finances, finding a flexible course to fit around existing work and family commitments, or having to access course information can significantly hinder their ability to enter into part-time education. By 2022, a third of our workforce will be over the age of 50, and yet the majority of Welsh spending in education is primarily directed towards children and young people. At present, those between 18 and 24 will have almost 100 times more invested on his or her education by the Welsh Government than someone aged between 50 and 74. Moreover, when we look at the number of young people who are not in employment, education or training in Wales compared to people between 50 and their pension age who are not in employment, education or training, the figures are startling—more than a three-fold difference: 60,000 compared to around 200,000. Of course, this disadvantage is felt the most in our deprived parts of the country.

So, the reality is that if we pursue our current trajectory, we’re in danger of laying a trap for our future economic development and personal well-being, because we will fail to utilise the full capabilities and potential of all in our workforce, and we will fail to develop that potential and that talent in parts of Wales that are already being left behind. So, faced with this demographic shift, developing the future framework and resourcing of adult learning is more important than ever to ensure that the Welsh economy has the skills that it needs.

Adult Learners’ Week has just finished. It was its twenty-sixth year of celebrating and promoting those who’ve already undertaken the journey into further and work-based learning—a fantastic initiative, I’m sure that we would all agree. On top of that, of course, we’ve had the Inspire! Awards, which emphasise how education is one of the most useful and powerful tools that we have as an enabler for everyone, from any age or background, to positively shape and change their lives.

So, it’s our intention, in debating this issue this afternoon, that we can move from the focus on full-time education to, instead, recognising the true and huge potential that part-time learning can provide. As the 2014 jointly commissioned report from the Open University and the National Union Students ‘It’s About Time’ argues, part-time higher education is about many things, but, at the end of the day, it ultimately hangs on one crucial factor, and that is time. Those returning to part-time education are often juggling other commitments. They’re caring for their families, they’re pursuing a career already, or they’re trying to overcome personal struggles to restart or redirect their lives. Sometimes, they’re doing all of these things together, simultaneously.

Just over 40,000 people here in Wales are currently enrolled in part-time higher education. They’ve decided to set aside weekdays, in the evening, after work. They’ve made personal commitments, and they’re persevering, very often, through financial and family pressures to achieve a qualification, to retrain themselves, to upskill or to seek an intellectual challenge. And I think their commitment and willingness to invest their time, their resources and their energy means that we here in this place should also be making a commitment back to them and we should try to do everything we can to make the choice that they have made easier.

But it’s clear from the current trends, I’m afraid, that adults are finding it more and more difficult to enrol in part-time education, because the numbers, in recent years, have been on the decline. Part-time learning decreased by 21 per cent in one year between 2015 and 2016 in further education institutions and there was an 11 per cent fall in those studying part time in higher education in the same year. In addition to that, learners in local authority adult community education in the same year also fell by a quarter. So, since 2011-12, there are 21,000 fewer learners each year in local authority adult community learning provision, down from 35,000 to just over 14,000.

Now, I appreciate that the Government has looked to address entry into part-time higher education in particular, and that’s why we’ve been on record as welcoming the provisions of the Diamond review, the recommendations of the Diamond review and the trajectory that the Government has embarked upon. I think it’s absolutely right that that gives part-time students parity of esteem in terms of the financial support that they can get to access higher education. But, of course, further education also needs a boost as well in terms of support and access into that, and Diamond doesn’t actually address that in the way that many of us had hoped that it would.

Turning back to higher education, at present the two priorities to address, of course, are financing and flexibility. We know that recent research from the OU shows that nearly a quarter of those in part-time higher education actually use their savings to fund their tuition fees, and another quarter funded their education through paid work while they were studying. But, worryingly, 17 per cent of learners, according to the OU, have used debt, including credit card debt, overdrafts and payday loans, to fund their tuition fees. These figures show that the current system is simply not working for part-time students.

It’s not accessible, particularly for those who are in low-wage employment in those most disadvantaged parts of Wales. They’ve got particular challenges, I think, that we need to help them to overcome. So, we’ve got debt aversion amongst mature students, and I think that that also is perhaps contributing to this downward slide in the numbers of people who’ve been entering part-time higher education and, indeed, further education in recent years.

Now, we know that postgraduate loans are going to be available from this September. I think that that’s a very welcome thing, but, of course, we need to ensure that there is some certainty beyond this next academic year for those postgraduate provisions, and indeed for all other students post the Diamond review. In the current system, loan applications for part-time study are open for submission later than those for full time, and these applications can be made only offline via hard copies, not online as with full-time students. Why? That’s not accessible, it’s not acceptable, and it creates hurdles—additional hurdles—for people to overcome.

And for distance-learning students at the moment, it’s particularly discouraging, because they face a long delay between enrolling for a course and then being able to apply for a loan, and that’s why we’re calling upon the Welsh Government to provide an all-age careers advisory and education service, because, currently, potential adult learners are simply not getting the support that they need. They’re not getting access to that impartial information, advice and guidance in the same way that full-time students actually are. We also need to ensure that part-time finance options are clearly articulated to those students, so that people can consider those actively when they make their applications, so that they can be confident that they’ve got the resources in place, not just for the first year that they embark on their course, but right through to the end of their courses as well.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

In addition to that, there is some ageism in the system. At present, Student Finance Wales cuts off funding for those who are 60 and over in the year that their course starts. And yet, we know that the older people’s commissioner and the Arad review have highlighted the huge benefits of lifelong learning in helping older people to live more independent lives, and more fulfilled lives. And so I think that it’s really important that that ageism within the system is also addressed, because we know that if we’re helping to promote independence, if we’re helping to support older people, delaying a package of social care, even just for one month, could save £1.8 million a year on average to our annual budgets.

In terms of flexibility, obviously we’ve got to ensure that those who choose to study part time are able to access it in as flexible a way as possible. We need to ensure that people can retrain, both within work and without work, in order to equip them to get back into the workforce, and we, for one, want to ensure that degree-level qualifications can be accessed on a modular approach, and of course many universities make those things available.

So, in short, I do hope that there will be cross-party support for the motion that we’ve put down. We all agree, I’m sure, that education is a lifelong pursuit. We want to ensure that there’s that parity of esteem between part-time and full-time provision, and we want to ensure that there’s adequate independent careers advice to help people back into the workplace. So, I do hope very much that Members will be supporting the motion.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion, and I call on the Minister for Skills and Science to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Amendment 1—Jane Hutt

Delete point 4 and replace with:

Notes the Welsh Government currently provides an all-age, independent and bilingual careers information advice and guidance service through Careers Wales.

Recognises the ambition of the Welsh Government in developing a new all-age employability plan, a key part of which is the need for effective and joined-up careers advice to support individuals into the most appropriate educational, employment and training opportunities.

Recognises the vital importance of adult learning and supporting skills development at all ages.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

I call on Llyr Gruffydd to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Amendment 2—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end motion:

Urges the Welsh Government to confirm its proposals for student support and higher education funding as soon as reasonably practicable to allow the higher education sector to plan ahead for the 2018/19 academic year.

Amendment 2 moved.

It’s a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to discuss issues related to adult education and community education. We’re always discussing schools, universities and colleges, and I think we are duty bound to redress that balance a little, and this debate today gives us an opportunity to do that.

In preparing for the debate, the one thing that struck me was the fact that adults in Wales are less likely to participate in education as compared to other parts of the UK. There are a number of reasons why we should be concerned about that, but we know that people are living longer, the demographic is changing and patterns of work are changing. We’ve heard already that a third of the workforce will be over 50 years of age in just a few years’ time. The working career is getting longer, and there’s a trend for more people to change careers during their working life and to do that more often. But far too often, of course, lifelong learning is seen as something that is secondary as a consideration as compared to other structures within the education system.

With the economic uncertainty that we’re facing, and the structural changes in the workforce—and we heard earlier today about the impact that automation is going to have on the workplace—it’s increasingly important that Wales has a flexible workforce, which is consistently learning new skills for employment and for the modernisation of working practices. The Government, of course, is working on a policy of 1,000 apprenticeships for people of all ages, and that is a policy that Plaid Cymru has, of course, supported and does support. But we should, perhaps, place the same emphasis, I think, on securing fair play for lifelong learning as well.

Now, there are a whole host of benefits. We’ve heard of some of them emerging from lifelong learning: economic benefits, obviously, and social benefits, benefits in terms of the health and well-being of individuals. But what I think underpins all of that is the need to create a culture of ongoing learning in Wales, and to strengthen that culture, and in thinking of education, we shouldn’t simply think of schools, universities and colleges, but place far more emphasis on informal education and as we do in this debate, on community education and lifelong learning.

It’s a debate that we’re having at the moment in the context of the education sector in Wales, and the debate on continuing professional development for the education workforce. The days when you got your teaching qualification and then you had four or five days of training to sharpen some of your skills—those days are long gone, and it is just as true in all other sectors. Given this current age where there are huge technological advances, it’s important that the workforce is flexible and keeps up with those advances.

So, if we are to transform the economy in Wales, if we want to take full advantage of those opportunities, and if we want to demonstrate the innovation and flexibility that characterise prosperous economies across this world, then we do need a workforce and a wider population that is continually upskilling. To do that, of course, we need to look beyond those areas that we have perhaps traditionally focused upon. But we need to change the culture, as I said, in order to ensure that we reach that aim.

For older people, of course, particularly perhaps people who have retired, accessing regular opportunities to develop and learn new skills is crucial in terms of ensuring that their health, their independence and their well-being are maintained. Many older people participate in adult education in order to have social contact, in order to improve physical activity, and to keep their minds sharp, and that is just as true and just as valid, of course, as any other reason for undertaking such education. So, investment in adult education is an investment that not only brings economic benefits but also, more importantly, wider social benefits.

From the point of view of the Plaid Cymru amendment, of course we do encourage the Government to confirm its proposals for student support and higher education funding in particular as soon as is reasonably practicable, because vice-chancellors tell me that there will be young people who will need to decide this September what they will do the following September, and they need to know what the nature of the financial support will be. Those institutions themselves, of course, need that information, because it’s a difficult climate that they’re currently operating in, in financial terms, and they need that long-term assurance. Thank you.

Wales has an ageing workforce and society. A third of the workforce will be aged over 55 or 50 in the next five years. It’s a striking figure. However, investment in skills and adult education is heavily focused on young adults. This has been to the detriment of people aged 25 and over. In future, businesses will need even more workforce with higher skills, and new technologies will increase that demand. Yet, participation in lifelong learning is in decline. We need an adult education system that benefits our economy and boosts research. We need a system that recognises adults’ needs to study flexibly and provides the opportunity to do so.

The demand for highly skilled employees in the UK economy as a whole is increasing. According to the Confederation of British Industry, more than three quarters of businesses expect to have more job openings for people with higher skill levels over the coming years. But, again, according to the CBI, 53 per cent of Welsh firms feel that they will not be able to source the skilled employees they need to meet future demand. Evidence clearly shows that three quarters of people in low-paid work are still in low-paid work 10 years later. So, the trend is clear: businesses require, and will in future require, a more highly skilled workforce.

The emergence of new technologies is already having a profound impact on the job market on the skills needed by tomorrow’s workforce. A new approach to upskilling is required to ensure both that future demand is met and that businesses across Wales are able to take advantage of these new technologies. Sadly, the trend across Wales is for significantly fewer people to be involved in programmes that will help them add to their skills. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of adult learners fell by more than 23,000. The longer term decline is even more concerning. Wales saw a 25 per cent reduction in the number of adults participating in learning programmes between 2012 and 2016. In contrast, the UK Government has made significant progress in supporting the private sector to boost upskilling.

The recent industrial strategy helped to create the right framework to incentivise businesses to invest in the skills base of their workforce. The UK Government’s strategy prioritises the Government working with qualification providers and learning institutions. This joint approach is working to ensure new courses are developed to enable part-time and distance learners to participate, and it appeals more to those already in the workforce looking to reskill or upskill. The strategy recognises that, to date, different organisations have identified skill needs in their own areas. However, no single organisation has been charged with identifying emerging future skills trends. The UK Government is therefore working towards a single joined-up authoritative view of the skills gap faced by the UK now and in the future. They’re assessing changes to the costs people face in accessing learning to make them less daunting. But first and foremost, the strategy recognises that high-growth sectors of the economy require corresponding high skill sets. It outlines measures to ensure that firms are able to contribute more to increasing the level of skills throughout the workforce.

Presiding Officer, Wales needs this sort of industrial vision to ensure we can take full advantage of the new technologies and ways of working that will transform the Welsh workplace. We should teach the world, not learn from the world. There are certain areas, such concepts as adult learning, readiness for learning, orientation and motivation for learning—all these are motivation for our youngsters and senior citizens and men and women together. We are double in force and we can surely transform our economy, health and well-being, which were mentioned earlier. It can certainly help to get our senior people well educated and promote second learning in the workplace in this country. Thank you.

I declare an interest as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University. I want to focus my contribution on the importance of part-time education. I speak having had 15 years’ experience of teaching part-time students, and I guess that’s probably around 1,000 part-time students in that time, one of whom—just to demonstrate how well part-time students can do—was Alun Cairns AM. He went on to great things, that boy—very proud of him. The ways in which Wales has benefitted may be open to debate, but certainly part-time education benefitted him, and I can see Andrew R.T. Davies looking slightly nervous there as he realises that Darren Millar is studying part-time as well, at the same time. But I also recognise others of my students—Grant Santos, who founded Educ8, which is a training provider itself, and Humie Webbe, who is the work-based learning equality and diversity champion for the National Training Federation Wales, was also one of my MBA students, and a fantastic MBA student. So, I taught Master of Business Administration, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply—all these part-time courses that have a huge benefit for the students who study them. One of the benefits is that you can feed directly the part-time learning back into the work that you’re doing or the work that you plan to do in the future. A significant minority were undergraduate students, too, and that brings its own challenges, because those undergraduate students often didn’t have work but were studying part-time whilst working part-time in jobs that they didn’t want to do and were aspiring to go into other jobs.

It’s a hugely valuable occupation and the level at which you learn will influence your future career. But what I’d also say to Darren Millar, in response to some of his comments, for higher education to be transformative, it’s got to have real buy-in from employers. One of the benefits I saw over those 15 years was the fact that employers were willing to pay some of the fees for their students to learn. That has declined in recent times, and particularly from the public sector. I saw CIPD student numbers drop, and the reason CIPD student numbers dropped was because public sector bodies couldn’t afford to educate their students, and it was a direct consequence of austerity. So, that’s had, perhaps, an unintended consequence on part-time student numbers from the UK Government. David Rees.

I thank the Member for giving way. It’s not just the fall, it’s being given the time off—they couldn’t actually release them for the time, so they couldn’t have people to go in.

Yes, it was very much a resource issue—that they needed Wednesday afternoons and Thursday mornings off to study, and organisations simply couldn’t afford that. But what I would say is private sector employers and public sector employers have a duty to educate their people. Employers say, ‘What happens if I educate my people and they leave?’ Well, what happens if you don’t educate your people and they stay? It’s really important that you educate your workforce.

One of the things that’s been in the news recently is plagiarism. Plagiarism is a problem, and a big problem with full-time students that deal with case studies. I found I could design my courses particularly easily for part-time students to focus on the work they were doing—so a cultural analysis of your organisational environment, for example, is very, very difficult to plagiarise and solves that problem to some extent. Indeed, one of the courses I got my MSc managing change students to do last year—before I was elected to this—was an analysis of the Williams report. So, I came here armed with some really good knowledge that was generated—and I tell you what, some of the analysis was real top-level stuff and would impress, I suspect, the Government Minister.

It’s therefore really important that we continue to support our part-time students. As Darren Millar has recognised, pro rata support for the living costs of part-time students will be of particular assistance to students from more deprived areas of our communities, and particularly the northern Valleys. I’ve held meetings with Cardiff University, with Cardiff Metropolitan University, and had discussions with the University of South Wales about how they can draw their work out of the university and into those communities. It’s something they’re willing to do.

Cardiff Metropolitan University have recently achieved the small business charter, and I gave evidence to the awarding body about the work that Cardiff Met did. One of the reasons they got that small business charter was because they committed to developing, not within the university their courses, but out in the communities. It will only be meaningful if those courses are developed in the areas that I talked about as the northern Valleys.

So, for me, part-time education is key with the support of the employers. I think, actually, with the Diamond review, the Government is on the right track. So, I’m perfectly prepared to support the Government’s motion today, and I think this debate has the benefit of demonstrating the importance and huge benefit to students who study part-time. Part-time study has huge value and will continue to have huge value to our society.

I support this motion, along with the Plaid amendment. Part-time study can be vital to those who cannot afford to give up work but need to study in order to improve the future for themselves and their family. A healthy part-time education sector can be a major attraction for businesses looking for a new home that want the option of being able to upskill their workforce. It gives increased options for those who want to return to work after a significant period away, perhaps looking after children.

Those most likely to benefit from part-time study are those who are most likely to need funding support, though. The upside is that they’re also the people most likely to be motivated to successfully complete their course. Adults attend study for different reasons and motivations than school leavers, and offer an excellent return on investment that justifies the investment of taxpayers’ money, apart from the benefit of improving people’s life choices. But there is still a need for young people to be able to access part-time education. A school leaver who has been failed by the education system, or has done poorly at school because of adverse childhood experiences, but who has a passion and the disposition to be, for example, an excellent nurse, will find it extremely difficult to make up for the deficiencies of their education in early life without appropriate advice and support.

It is possibly inevitable that some people will need to work full-time and study part-time. But, during that time, they deserve the help they need and the funding required to upskill, so that they can help Wales fill the jobs that are currently standing vacant or being recruited for outside Wales. If a person cannot take part in part-time education, or if it is made uneconomic or impractical, or if—due to poor or absent careers advice—they don’t know what their options are, people will find it difficult, if not impossible, to overcome accidents of birth that saw them born into a low-income family or with adverse childhood experiences or that sent them to a failing school whenever or wherever that was.

Good, accessible careers advice is vital for people if they’re going to take advantage of the part-time study opportunities that exist. For a person who has been out of education for, perhaps, many years, it could be a daunting prospect researching courses and applying for them without a good careers service to provide that helping hand. I will not be supporting the Labour amendment today, which displays the typical complacency of a party in Government that refuses to even admit that there may be room for improvement in the provision of careers advice in Wales. If Welsh Labour support the sentiments of point 4, why are they deleting it and replacing it with an amendment that says, effectively, nothing?

Welsh Government says in its amendment that it has the ambition to develop a new all-age employability plan, part of which is providing joined-up careers advice. But an ambition falls far short of delivery or even commencing implementation. So, my question is, why, after nearly 20 years in this place, are you only now expressing the ambition to provide joined-up careers advice in Wales on an all-age employability plan? Thank you.

I’d like to contribute today to this debate very much focusing on higher education and lifelong learning and how that links in with the Welsh economy. But there are two things I would be very keen to know today, and this is one: what course is Darren Millar doing? He told us he’s doing a part-time FE course; he didn’t tell us what he was doing. And, secondly, I would like to know from Hefin David what marks he gave to Alun Cairns. [Laughter.] I’m grateful for Hefin’s contribution; I thought that was a very good contribution.

For the economy to grow, we, of course, need to ensure that we have the people with the correct skills and the correct training available to them. And for two reasons: one, to help them achieve their potential and, two, of course, to help us grow the Welsh economy. Now, regrettably, those without qualifications outnumber those who do have them in some areas of Wales. I think that should be a regret to us all. But the future generations commissioner, I noticed, warned about 70,000 school leavers leaving without five good GCSEs. This, of course, is at a time when businesses are facing a skills shortage and experiencing difficulties in recruiting the right staff to meet their demands. There are plenty of examples in my own constituency where businesses have moved across the border into Shropshire—or are threatening to—for, sometimes, two reasons: usually, the reason’s the lack of broadband, but the other reason is that they can’t attract the right skills. Sometimes, they remain in the constituency but they move to the very edge of the constituency, on the Shropshire border, to attract those people from Shropshire who do have the right skills. I think we need to break this cycle of deprivation and lifelong economic inactivity caused by, what I think is, poor educational attainment.

Of course, there is a chicken-and-egg situation here as well. Industries come to me in my constituency and say, ‘Look, the local FE college is not providing the right skills for our business.’ So, I go and see the college and they say, ‘Well, we’ve got to provide the courses that are demanded by younger people. We’re providing the hairdressing courses, the media courses, et cetera.’ So, I go back to industry and tell them, and I say to them, ‘You’ve got to go into schools and sell your industry. Sell your industry and sell it as a positive life option and tell them about the higher pay that you can offer if those younger people go into those areas.’ They come back to me and sometimes say, ‘That’s good advice, we’ve done that’, and sometimes they come back and say, ‘Well, the school wouldn’t let us in.’ So, I think that’s one particular issue to address as well. I think Darren Millar touched on this in his contribution with regard to independent careers advice. I don’t think that’s happening at the moment, and I think it’s absolutely crucial that it does. I hope that can be addressed and I hope the Cabinet Secretary can make some comments on that.

Also, Darren Millar, in his opening comments, alluded to the over-60s as well. He’s absolutely right: I’m only 17 years off 60 myself; 60 is no longer old. Don’t forget, earlier this month, we had MPs in their 70s and 80s being elected. So, there’s plenty—[Interruption.] Absolutely, I say to Dafydd Elis Thomas. [Laughter.] People in their 60s have 20 years of working life left in them, if they want that, and there’s an example in my own constituency: Dave Fields from Llanfyllin. He’s been accepted on a postgraduate course at Aberystwyth University, it’s great and he’s excited about that, but Student Finance Wales refused his funding. He’s been made redundant, he wants to work—he wants to work for another 20 years—and he wants to get the right skills to do that, but he can’t do it. So, I very much hope that—. I looked at a bit of research on this and could see that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee looked at this, but I hope the Cabinet Secretary can respond to that particular point.

The last point of my contribution—I’m running out of time—is on breaking the cycle of deprivation and lifelong learning and economic inactivity caused by poor educational attainment. One way of doing that is through measures contained in the UK Government’s industrial strategy, which ensures that growing enterprises have the skills and support they need to create new jobs and prosperity. I would really like to see the Welsh Government’s response to the UK Government’s industrial strategy. I’m looking at the Cabinet Secretary over there, who I did ask in the Chamber—he’s not listening at the moment. There you are, he’s awake now. I did ask him if I could have a copy of the industrial strategy. You said ‘yes’ in the Chamber. I asked the business manager as well for a copy. ‘Yes.’ But all that Members have received is a covering letter to the Secretary of State for business, without the details, and refusing to give us the contents of that, saying that that’s an appendix. Please can you we have a look at that? I can’t see why we can’t see a copy of a Welsh Government response to a UK Government consultation. So, I think I’m running out of time.

You have run out of time. [Laughter.] Yes, not ‘running’. Thank you very much. Rhianon Passmore.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As a former visiting lecturer myself and a former director in FE, but most importantly as a mum, I also welcome this debate. The people of Wales can rest assured that the Welsh Labour Party—the party of the many and not the few—will safeguard, promote and increase educational opportunities for our nation.

It may then be worth casting a collective eye over the border into England to see how the Tories value post-compulsory education and training where they’re actually in power. Let’s not forget, since 2010, 1.3 million adult learners have been lost in England since the Tories came to power. In England, over £1 billion has been cut from the skills budget since 2010 when the Tories came to power, and that is a 14 per cent real terms cut. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies found that spending per head for further education in England will have fallen by 13 per cent between 2010-11 and 2019-20. So, whilst I greatly welcome this debate, unsurprisingly, as an educational professional, I shall not be taking any lectures from the benches opposite. Indeed, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives would do well to tell the Prime Minister, when she calls him next, of the good practice that is taking place in Wales under Labour, in stark contrast to England. Although, I fear that Andrew R.T. Davies may not be on Theresa May’s speed dial and I am reminded of the lyrics of The Feeling’s popular song,

‘I love it when you call / But you never call at all’.

In Wales, the Welsh Labour Government’s deep commitment to this field can be evidenced by the recent Diamond review. The Welsh Government has put in place the most generous student support package anywhere in the UK, with a new emphasis on enhanced support for part-time students. We recognise the need and the investment. Wales is leading the way in fundamentally shifting higher education finance towards a progressive, stable and sustainable system that will support students when they need it most, and enable our universities to compete internationally.

One of the most important things Welsh Labour has done in Government, in my view, is to make sure that the deep cuts being handed down by the Tory UK Government do not curtail the life chances of our young people. Welsh students in higher education have been protected from the crippling debts experienced by university students across the UK. The current level of debt for students from Wales is around £20,000 less than their counterparts in England. In their motion, the Welsh Tories call for an all-age education and careers advisory service, and they seem to have forgotten, rather, about Careers Wales. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Welsh Government, Careers Wales provides an all-age, independent and bilingual careers information, advice and guidance service across Wales.

It is right that postgraduate part-time studies will now, unlike in England, be funded here in Wales, and I am grateful—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

You mentioned Careers Wales. Of course, what we’ve seen—and I’ve had a lot of correspondence around this in north Wales—is a halving in the staffing levels there. We’ve seen numbers drop. Back in 2010, careers services used to see every pupil in years 10 and 11; now it’s around a quarter of pupils in year 11 only. Is that acceptable?

It is right that we invest in correct careers advice across Wales, and I’m glad that we are moving in that correct direction.

So, I am grateful for the Welsh Government amendment that recognises fully the vital importance of adult learning and supporting skills development at all ages. Equally, as an adult learner myself, to conclude, I would not be standing here today in the National Assembly for Wales if it were not for the comprehensive opportunities and support that I was given long after my compulsory education was over. I know that this Government values not just the rhetoric, but in policy delivery, the outcomes for people of all ages across Wales. Thank you.

I am going to be but a pale imitation, I think, of the last contributor who gave it her usual amount of great gusto.

I am very pleased to participate in this debate, because I think one of the mistakes that we sometimes make is that we think education is linear: children are born, they go to primary school, they skip along to secondary school, they go to FE, HE and pop put the other end and get some kind of job, and then through their job they can do any number of skills. But we’ve got to face facts that an awful lot of children hate school. An awful lot of children have a really miserable time at school. They get bullied, they don’t fit in, and they have a huge amount of other pressures, particularly in secondary school when hormones are wreaking havoc. They may have families that don’t provide them with support. They may be constantly told that they’re stupid or useless or in the way, and they simply don’t perform well. We also have to face facts that about a quarter of our schoolchildren in Wales have some kind of additional learning need, which can range from perhaps a small amount of dyslexia all the way through to a significant and profound social, anger management or mental capacity requirement.

So, our children come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and they all need to find their way in the world through different routes. They simply cannot all follow the same route. And I’ve met a couple of my constituents who have really inspired me with their life stories. One was a young girl who had her first child at 14, the second one at 16. In her very early 20s, she realised she did not want her boys to have the kind of life that she was going through, and so she went back to school. She didn’t have anything, and she went back to part-time and she got her GCSEs, and then she struggled on after a while, and she did A-levels, then she did a—I can’t remember the exact name of the course, but it was some kind of foundation course from the Open University—and she’s now training to be a nurse. And I have utter respect for that woman’s life path.

A young man came to me, honestly, he was about 18 or 19, he could barely string a word together, he’d left school at 14 and all he ever wanted to do was drive a digger. And he had actually earnt enough money to go out and buy a digger when he was about 19, and he had all the requisite whatever licences you need. But his frustration was that he wanted to try and grow it and make it into a business, and we gave him a little bit of help, pointed him to a couple of grants and things like that, and he went off and got a number of courses under his belt. This must have been in about 2009-10, and he has now got business training, he’s got a second digger and he’s starting to employ people. Again, he wouldn’t have done that, he couldn’t do that going through the standard route that so many other people follow. The reason why he was able to do that was he was able to access part-time education. He was able to go out and carry on doing his job, earning some money and he went to night school, he went to Pembrokeshire College, and then he just went on from there.

I think that when we look at adult education, we really need to look at it in a very holistic way and accept that an awful lot of people will not follow the standard routes. So, that was the first bit of this motion I really wanted to talk about: supporting progression for people across the spectrum.

The second element of the motion that I wanted to pick up was around the issue of making older people feel valuable and part of our communities and ensuring that loneliness and isolation, which we talk about again and again and again in this Chamber as one of the great public health ills that’s slowly beginning to be visited on more and more people, we start to combat, and how do we keep people engaged?

I’ve mentioned older people, but, of course, loneliness and isolation can hit you at any age, at any of the transition points in your life. You lose a job, you get a divorce, you are bereaved, something cataclysmic happens and you really struggle. The great thing, again, about being able to go into a part-time course—even if it’s on something that is just a passion and not about learning a skill in order to go out and earn money—is you’re building emotional resilience, you’re building confidence and belief in yourself and you’re making friends. That’s really important because most people need to be able to make friends.

We live very insular lives these days. Some people are incredibly lonely. Never in our society has it been so true to say that we have so many people who are totally lonely in the vast crowd that is the population on our planet. I think that adult education and community education, allowing people, or enabling people, to be able to follow something and feel part of the great jigsaw that is the big life, is really is really, really vital. Not everyone will want to do it, not everyone will want to follow this path, but there will be some who are just crying out to have that level of engagement. If we close these doors and we take the money away from this kind of, if you like, slightly softer form of education, and just concentrate it on the hard stuff, we’re disadvantaging at least a quarter of our children, but an awful lot of adults who simply can’t join in the way an awful lot of people who sit in this Chamber have gone through education.

Thank you. I call the Minister for Skills and Science, Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin my contribution today by thanking both the Welsh Conservatives for bringing this very important debate forward and all the people who have spoken? I think it’s been clear from the debate that, actually, we broadly agree the principles, which are that lifelong learning is extremely important to people from all backgrounds and all ages, and access to part-time education at all levels—. Angela has spoken very movingly, for example, of some of the examples in her constituency. Darren referenced the Inspire! awards—it gives me the chance to say that I was there to present the overall learner award, and I think it would be remiss of me—. That’s the third time I’ve presented those awards, and I’ve genuinely been moved to tears on all three occasions, but the best thing of all about those awards has been watching what the overall winners have done afterwards. So, this time, the overall winner from the first time that I presented it was there and she’s gone from a nervous wreck to a confident and self-assured woman, perfectly happy to speak on the stage and present the award to this year’s winner. This year’s winner was a nervous wreck but was able to see that, in a couple of years’ time, she’ll clearly be the self-assured person that the winner from the first year that I attend was.

So, I think there’s no doubt at all—. Hefin and Rhianon also spoke passionately about the transformational effect that this sort of education can have, although, I have to say, I want to have a little word with Hefin about the people he chooses to transform, but that’s another point.

So, I think we largely agree that it’s vital to provide people of all backgrounds and from all communities in Wales with the flexible opportunities they need to improve their skills and strengthen their employment prospects. That’s exactly, of course, why we are encouraging part-time study through the funding we provide to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales to subsidise the cost of fees.

The impact of this funding can be evidenced with the considerably lower fee for part-time courses in Wales when compared to England, for example. We were very pleased as a Government that, in this challenging financial climate, HEFCW has been able to maintain the level of its support for part-time provision.

We’ve also been very clear, though, that we need to prepare for a more sustainable future in this regard, and you’ve all been kind enough to indicate that there is broad support for the Diamond review across this Chamber. I think that speaks volumes for buy-in in Wales for education as a lifelong pursuit. So, we’re looking to build a sustainable, progressive funding model for student support, and, in doing so, we want to make sure that we are bringing help to those who most need it. And we also want to ensure that we enable our universities to keep competing internationally, whilst allowing our students access to that. That’s why we commissioned the Diamond review in the first place, and it’s why we’ve given a great deal of thought to the practical implications of implementing the recommendations.

I’m sure you all know that the consultation concluded in February. It gave all those with an interest in student support an opportunity to comment on the proposals, which were influenced by the outcomes of the review panel. The Welsh Government will be publishing a report on that consultation, together with confirmation of the higher education student support package for 2018-19, later on this year, in July. As the Cabinet Secretary for Education confirmed in November, we had largely accepted the Diamond review panel’s recommendations for an enhanced package of support for students, and this, I want to emphasise, will include parity of support for part-time and postgraduate students, which I think absolutely everybody who contributed to this debate expressed a view as being essential in this space. I just want to emphasise that, when this is introduced, as Rhianon Passmore said rather more passionately than I’m currently managing, this will be a unique package in the UK, of which we’re incredibly proud. I believe that that proposed system will allow the greater flexibility into our system that will encourage students from all backgrounds to get on and enter education in this sphere.

People also mentioned employability. I’ve spoken quite often in this Chamber of the need to take a cross-Government approach to addressing the many barriers preventing people from entering and remaining in employment. Skills are obviously a very large part of that, but they are not the only barrier, and I think we do need to acknowledge that. So, we’re developing an employability delivery plan for Wales, and I’ll be saying more about this in the coming weeks. I’m going to resist the temptation to pre-announce my announcement. But, we’ll be bringing together the information we have on existing Welsh Government-funded employability programmes to consider what needs to change to meet the employment, skills and support needs of people who are unemployed, economically inactive—many people in the Chamber during this debate have mentioned the problem of economic inactivity—or those in lower quality jobs who need to be upskilled.

I just want to acknowledge Hefin David’s contribution here around the employer engagement for this. One of the big things I ask of people in this Chamber is to always be an ambassador for encouraging firms to train. So, although we understand that many firms find it difficult to find the resource—and it is a resource, as David Rees pointed out in an intervention—of releasing their people, because we’re able to provide the training, but they do need to release the people. Actually persuading people of the business need to do that in terms of their own resilience, their ability to grow and their ability to continue to meet the challenges in their business environment is very important.

Will you take an intervention?

Certainly.

You will recognise, though, that some people want to train because they want to leave an employer to go elsewhere, and some people, simply from a personal enrichment point of view, will want to take up a course that has nothing to do with the employment that they’re currently in. So, I would just ask what you are going to do for those people to help them with those transitions and, in particular, those who want to study part-time FE courses, not just the HE. You’ve focused a lot on HE so far.

I absolutely acknowledge that point. There are several cohorts of people whom we need to be able to address here. So, I was just simply making the point that, for those people in work and, perhaps, in a firm where they have some commitment but would like to advance in, and particularly in firms that want to grow themselves, that’s a very important point. I think the quote that was given was, ‘What happens if I train them and they leave?’ Well, more importantly, what happens if you don’t train them and they stay? That is a message we do need to get out to a lot of Welsh firms. We’ve got around 40 per cent of firms that don’t train at the moment. But I do take the point that Darren Millar makes about what happens to people who just want to enhance their own particular personal ambitions, if you like, and that’s why those Inspire! awards are often so important, actually. So, this employability plan will take into account the needs of people who do want to progress their career, perhaps not with the employer they’re currently with, but elsewhere.

And one of the issues we’ll have to deal with is to make sure that the careers service and all of the other partners that we have—because this will be a cross-society partnership to make this work—actually signpost people to the right things, so that if you pitch up in the wrong place, those people can signpost you back to the right place. All of us, as AMs, will have had the experience of people trying to find that way, and I hope that you’ll see, when we announce the employability plan, that what we’re looking for is a simple and more obvious route to the right support for people, depending on what they want or what their particular personal ambition is. And I’ll be soon making an oral statement outlining that approach to employability.

Many people have mentioned Careers Wales, and Careers Wales actually engaged extensively last year with stakeholders to identify a forward vision for service delivery and development, which they called ‘Changing Lives’. We’ve listened very carefully to the results of that engagement, and our remit to the company will now be taking that vision forward. Our national careers service helps clients to develop the skills needed to manage their careers and make decisions in a complex and changing world, but we acknowledge that we want to see all young people move smoothly and successfully though that into employment, and for adults to be inspired to take control of their careers. So, that plan from Careers Wales has a different focus on how they will achieve that, using the resources that are available to them, and I think they’ve embraced that well, actually. I think, Llyr, you made a good point about some of the things that have happened with Careers Wales, but they’ve risen to the challenge of refocusing what they need to do, and we will have to take advantage of digital and other ways of delivering that, rather than always face-to-face meetings—Skype and so on. There are lots of digital things. I don’t have the time, Deputy Presiding Officer, to indulge in that.

So, finally, I just want to say to those who have raised the importance of adult learning in general that there’s no doubt that, as a Welsh Government, we recognise the important contribution that adult learning makes to the skills, employability, health and well-being of our citizens, and that’s why we remain completely committed to adult learning. We will shortly be publishing a revised adult learning policy for Wales, which sets out our priorities for this provision over the next few years, and reaffirms our commitment to providing opportunities for all learners throughout life. So, can I end by thanking members for letting me hear their valuable contributions, for letting me contribute to this important debate today, and to say that I think that, actually, we are largely in agreement, with some nuances that can be discussed as the coming months occur? Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. I call on Nick Ramsay to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank everyone who has contributed to today’s debate, and thank the Minister for her comments? A debate that, as Russ George said, is about breaking the circle, and, as Darren Millar—our resident student—said in opening this debate, this is about social mobility. Many people want to pursue education at a later stage in their life, and there can be challenges for them doing that, so we need to make the transition from work to education as smooth as possible, particularly for adults who are finding it difficult to enrol in part-time education, and we need to see equity.

Turning to some of the contributions, as Llyr Gruffydd said, we need to change the culture. It’s not just a question of money; it’s about a different way of doing things. And, in fact, Oscar, Mohammad Asghar, said it’s about new ways of working as well, and teaching the world, not just being taught by the world.

Hefin, you made a very good point, going back to your experience of teaching yourself. You spoke about how you combatted plagiarism when you were teaching students. It took me back to many years ago, when I was first elected to this place. The now Minister for Welsh language and I were in a committee meeting. He probably doesn’t want to remember this. He picked up a committee report—Angela was there—and he threw it at an Assembly Member, and I will not mention him by name, and accused him of massive plagiarism, because it was all the bulk of what you’d written, Alun, but the name had changed at the end, hadn’t it? Yes. Those were the days, weren’t they?

We learnt today, that Russ George is 17 years off 60—it’s not his birthday; it’s just he’s 17 years off 60, which, he told us, is these days not an old age. I could hear Dafydd Elis-Thomas heave a huge sigh of relief when he made that comment. I believe that he’s this side—our side—of 60, Darren, and not the other, but he did make the comment about breaking the cycle, and that’s what this is about. That’s what this motion is about. That’s why we’ve laid it today. You said it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. It’s important for industry to go into schools and to be welcomed into schools so that young people can learn at an early age what their interests are, so that they can then focus on those.

Rhianon Passmore, you didn’t disappoint. You didn’t disappoint, did you? Sadly, you seemed to be more interested in Andrew R.T. Davies’s address book than higher education. I’m sure you can exchange numbers later, if you so wish. [Interruption.] No, that was just a joke, by the way; there’s nothing there. [Laughter.]

You know, it’s funny: you spoke a lot about Theresa May and the UK Government—it’s not that long since the Members opposite would do everything they could do to avoid talking about party leaders, wasn’t it? Do you remember that, just before the election?

Not all of us.

Apart from Mike Hedges. I even remember one debate where poor old Ken Skates was wheeled into a debate to defend Jeremy Corbyn. The look on his face said it all at that point. I mean, goodness me, I’m probably closer to Jeremy Corbyn than Ken Skates is. [Laughter.] Those were the days, but how things have moved on. Now, they want to talk about leadership, don’t they? So, that is a welcome change.

Can I thank the Minister for her comments? You pretty much said—you summed up the views of the Chamber very well, I thought. We all want to get to the same place. We want to ensure that there is a smooth transition from work to education, back again, at different stages in people’s lives when they need that. We may have our disagreements, but I think that that is at the core of all our thinking as AMs. That’s what this motion is hoping to achieve, and I urge Members to support it.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore we’ll defer voting until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I’m going to proceed directly to the vote.