My Lords, it is a pleasure to introduce this timely debate. I am very much looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Curran.
I must remind the House of my education interests in the register, including chairing Century Tech and advising Pearson, both of which have products used for lifelong learning. I also co-chair the All-Party Group on the Future of Work.
This debate is timely. It is timely because the new Government are getting on with the establishment of Skills England, and reintegrating it with regional and national industrial strategies as part of the essential growth ambitions for the country. It is timely because the Government are remodelling the apprenticeship levy to a more flexible employer-responsive growth and skills levy, and implementing the lifelong learning entitlement. It is timely because of some profound shifts in society caused by ageing and technological change.
These last big shifts point to the need for a significant focus on lifelong learning by this Government after years of neglect. In thinking about this, I am informed by the work of Professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott and their prize-winning 2016 book The 100-Year Life; by a lecture given three months ago by Professor Lily Kong, president of the Singapore Management University; and by Professor Christopher Pissarides’s review into the future of work and well-being, which published its report just last week.
The 100-Year Life discusses the implications of more of us living to 100. Across the western world, we are seeing falling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Although that is not equitably spread, the trend is clear. If you want a reasonable pension, a lifespan of 100 requires working into your 80s; although that may be a regular reality in your Lordships’ House, a 60-year working life has wider implications, particularly the inevitability of multiple careers. As AI and other technology rapidly disrupts work, it is also not credible that knowledge and skills obtained into your mid-20s will maintain labour market value for a further six decades. A life of multiple careers needs an education system designed for lifelong learning. We need to move on from the three-phase life of education, then work, then retirement. We need a system that allows all of us to learn in work, to re-enrol in education institutions, to have our learning certificated and recognised as we go, and to navigate successfully through many new directions.
This is most important for our university sector. One of the legacies inherited by this Government from the previous one is an HE sector in financial crisis. The previous Government prevented student fees from rising with inflation, and, as a result, domestic students have become a loss leader and universities have hiked foreign nationals’ fees in response. We need to reverse this trend and protect the massive soft power benefit of these education exports. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her leadership in allowing universities to raise fees.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Knight, on securing this debate, his insightful remarks and reminding us that all sectors of education need to evolve as our society changes. Lifelong learning has social, economic and personal value. It is long established but it has many of the qualities that the noble Lord demands: it is diverse, flexible, collaborative and constantly evolving to meet the needs of its customers. But it is frequently overlooked—although not today.
I am glad to note that, within the Government’s ambitious plans for reform of apprenticeships and for further and technical education, there is also mention of lifelong learning, responsibility for which I think is going to lie with mayoralties. The Government have equally ambitious plans for the wholesale reform of local government at the same time. I am looking at the Minister, who is smiling—it is not a gloomy day—and I am hoping that she is going to be able to reassure noble Lords that lifelong learning will not fall through any cracks.
Lifelong learning providers include local government, as we all know, colleges, schools, universities, extramural boards and, indeed, the voluntary sector. Courses can be part-time and short- or long-term, and they increasingly lead to qualifications. Grants are available for learning essential skills. There is a free courses for jobs scheme for low earners and the unemployed. Lifelong learning can be delivered, as we all know, remotely as lectures, courses and classes, and held in schools and colleges after hours, in village halls and—sometimes, in my own experience—in pubs.
The Open University was founded in 1969, and it has been one of the most revolutionary developments in lifelong learning. It enabled people—from their homes, with help from televised lectures and in-person courses—to graduate. The WEA, founded in 1903, has a distinguished record of providing pathways to qualifications and purely academic courses. The University of the Third Age has, since 1982, made an extremely valuable contribution to lifelong learning. It is run by volunteers, and its membership is now at nearly half a million.
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for securing this debate. I declare an interest as an employed academic at King’s College London. It is gratifying that so many of us want to speak even though we have only four minutes. But there is a slightly gloomy hinterland, which is that people like us have been talking about the importance of lifelong learning for a very long time, and meanwhile adult education spending and numbers are going down, part-time and adult HE numbers are down, and higher education provision in further education is down. So there is a lot to do.
Because I have only three minutes left, I will concentrate on the higher education, higher skills end of things, rather than the literacy, numeracy and ESL provision that makes up a very large part of current adult education.
I was a member of the Augar review, and our number one recommendation was the LLE—lifelong learning entitlement—about which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke so eloquently. I still believe that this is a hugely important reform. It was a big relief, and enormously gratifying in the years before the last election, to have cross-party support and to have that support reiterated by the present Government. I have a slight worry that everybody is so busy thinking about how to reform it before we start, that five years from now we might still be talking about what the ideal structure would be. I urge the Government to get on with it, because until we try it, we will not find out what works and what does not.
Having said that, I will suggest a couple of things that could do with some attention and which are not to do with the design of the LLE, but more to do with the structure and supply of opportunities in the institutional landscape. If you look at a number of other countries that are not so different from us—Canada, Australia and the United States are obvious examples—there has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of people doing short but relatively high-level, what we would probably call level 4, courses in vocational areas. That has been possible because of the institutional structures as well as the funding mechanisms. Those countries basically all have systems not unlike ours in that it is a combination of state support and people paying fees, with more or less well-developed income-contingent back-up.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for bringing this debate and look forward in the spirit of lifelong learning to hearing other contributions this evening.
Lifelong learning is about social value, although we do not live to store up treasure just for ourselves. It is about economic value, although we do not live by bread alone. It is about personal value, although we do not live just for me but for the flourishing of others who are our neighbours. Faith communities play an important part in all these aspects of lifelong learning, through catechesis, engagement with social issues, basic skills training, youth work, volunteering and engagement with schools, FE colleges and universities. They are also crucially involved in spiritual value by fostering vocation and character.
Within faith communities, and certainly for Christians, there is a strong sense that each individual is uniquely and wonderfully made with a mix of gifts, abilities and motivations. Part of our searching in life is to find our vocation where we can find life in all its fullness. Our vocations can be multiple and overlaid with paid work, voluntary service to others and perhaps a role as a parent or carer, all of which need different skills. Different vocations emerge over time, sometimes requiring new skills and knowledge as people move into new careers and interests.
Vocation has an interplay with the second area that faith communities are so involved with, which is character. In his book The Road to CharacterDavid Brooks speaks about “résumé virtues” and “eulogy virtues”. Résumé virtues are those things that we put on our CV, such as our jobs and our qualifications, whereas eulogy virtues are those things about us that might, we hope, be said one day at our funeral. Brooks argues that we need to develop a healthy character.
I have a number of relevant registered interests. I am very pleased to follow the right reverend Prelate and to endorse what I thought was an excellent “Thought for the Day”, which I hope he will be able to get on Radio 4. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Knight on an excellent opening speech, and I endorse everything he said. I look forward very much to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Curran, who is surrounded by friends, so she should have no fear. Being in this place is a lifelong learning experience. I often come in literally to have a seminar, learning things I know nothing about, and go away at least somewhat enlightened. I believe that we should endorse that kind of experience from the beginning to the end of our lives.
I have had a few hiccups lately, so I may not make the 100 that my noble friend Lord Knight referred to, but I am going to do my best. During that time, as well as advocating for a massive shift in the skills agenda, as I have been doing inside and outside this House, I will return to my real love, which is lifelong learning. Just over 25 years ago, I had the privilege of publishing the paper: The Learning Age. The department was slightly bewildered as my noble friend Lady Shephard, as I like to call her, will remember because I succeeded her. No. 10 was not just bewildered; it was bemused about why I should be spending time and energy on lifelong learning. The truth is that our country has been built on it.
The trade union movement was the first to understand the liberation of learning and the way in which this transformed the lives of not just individuals but families and whole communities. After the miners’ strike 40 years ago, women were liberated in my home area of South Yorkshire by adult learning being made available. I hope my noble friend can reassure me that the two remaining adult residential colleges that have major outreach will be secured in an environment where devolution of funding to combined authorities leaves artificial boundaries that might undermine funding initiatives of that sort. My university, the University of Sheffield, was in part built on a levy by the trade unions in the area which put together what would now be worth millions of pounds to get that university off the ground in 1905. The history of people understanding what it was doing to them, their lives and their opportunity and community is something we should build on.
It is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, on securing this debate and suggest to him that there is another reason why it is timely. The Chancellor spoke last week of the urgent need to remove barriers to economic growth. One of those barriers, I argue, is an outdated mindset around the contribution that older people can make to our economy.
The first state pension was introduced by the Asquith Government in 1908, and the retirement age was set at 70, when the average life expectancy of the population was around 50. Today, life expectancy is 30 years higher at 82 and yet the state retirement age is four years lower than it was a century ago. Moreover, that was at a time when most of the jobs required physical strength, which declines with age, whereas today most of the jobs are in the knowledge- and service-based sectors.
There are many examples in your Lordships’ House of the contribution that older people make. The average age of Members of your Lordships’ House is 71, and some of the sharpest and most insightful contributions come from Members well into their 80s and 90s. Lord Mackay of Clashfern is the wisest and kindest man I know. He retired aged 95 a few years ago; in my view, that was an early retirement and a loss to the House. The point is that we are surrounded by living examples who defy the prevailing societal norms and expectations of retirement.
Outside this House, there are many more examples. The Rolling Stones are still touring, and many in their 20s and 30s would find it a challenge to swagger like Jagger in his 80s. Sir David Attenborough made the spectacular “Planet Earth III” series for the BBC at the age of 97. So why do we have such an outdated and outmoded view of the economic potential of people and the valuable contribution they can make, as long as they feel able?
I declare an interest as a very mature student. I left school without any qualifications at 16 and earned my first degree at 37. I began a master’s degree in my 50s and I hope to finally complete my PhD later this year at the age of 64. It has been thoroughly joyful and rejuvenating experience—although my supervisors may not see it that way. We have irrefutable evidence that continuing to learn has huge health benefits, including improved mental health and physical fitness, reduced loneliness, delayed onset of dementia and an enhanced quality of life.
I am very pleased to speak in this debate this afternoon, as I have embarked on my own programme of lifelong learning these past few weeks. Although this is my third parliamentary Chamber, I still feel the nerves and anxiety of the new girl. But any anxiety has been greatly assuaged by the kindness and graciousness with which I have been welcomed. That it has come from all sides of the House is greatly appreciated. My sincere thanks go to Black Rod, her amazing staff, the wise doorkeepers, the cleaners, the catering staff and the incredible staff in the Library. The support I have had from my noble friends Lady Smith and Lord Kennedy has been both encouraging and empowering—not words I usually associate with a Chief Whip.
I am sure my late parents could never have foreseen me standing here. They arrived in Townhead in Glasgow from Ireland with scarcely a penny in their pockets. They taught my three sisters and me the value of education, the dignity of honest labour, and a deep belief in equality for all. I owe so much to my family, especially to my sister Bridget, who is in the Gallery today, and who, since I could read, has thrust a book into my hand—books that I believe have changed the course of my life.
There is a part of me that is surprised that I am here: a working-class girl with no historic or familial connection to politics. That I have sustained this is because of the encouragement I received from my noble friends Lady Harman and Lady Liddell, who introduced me to your Lordships’ House. Both of them are icons of progress and change. I thank them for helping me in these past few weeks and the many years before.
My mother always said that Scotland had been good to her family. She understood only too well the benefit of government help—from family allowance paid to mothers, the provision of social housing and investment in state education—proving for me that the real measure of politics is less in the high rhetoric, or the flags flown, but in the lives changed.
My Lords, it is a real pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Curran and the excellent maiden speech we have just been treated to. She is a graduate of a tough school. Clydeside politics is not for wimps and the faint-hearted, but it is a rich academy producing gifted political figures—my noble friend is certainly one of those. We all wish her son Chris very well; he is MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh. I am sure I speak for everyone in congratulating my noble friend on her powerful speech here today. We are looking forward to many other interventions by her in the work of this House.
I turn to the subject of today’s debate, lifelong learning, which is an area where the UK—let us be frank—continues to struggle compared to the best. Over my years at the TUC, I worked with industrial training boards, sector skills councils, the Manpower Services Commission and the Learning and Skills Council, among other prominent institutions that have been involved. None survived political change. Regular institutional upheaval has been a feature of our efforts at lifelong learning in this country, and in my view a very damaging one. It contrasts with some other leading countries and with the higher education world, which has enjoyed relative stability at the same time as there has been turmoil on the vocational front.
It is very depressing to see the decline in the number of students at colleges of further education and in the adult learning world—down by 70% over the decade that has just passed. It is a sign of a sector in trouble, and we are nowhere near achieving the parity of esteem objective that many of us have long sought. Even apprenticeships, the strongest brand in the vocational learning armoury, have been subject to many changes and alterations to the rules. It is complicated territory.
I hope the Bill being piloted through Parliament at the moment by my noble friend on the Front Bench will address these weaknesses and launch a new surge of interest in lifelong learning. I also hope that it will be the last of the regular institutional changes, which I believe have been a drag anchor on progress. Lifelong learning has not been a glamorous subject, and it needs to be. I saw a report produced for the World Economic Forum earlier this week. It forecasted that two-fifths of the existing jobs will be outdated by artificial intelligence in the next five years. That is 40%, and if it is anything like accurate, this shows graphically the scale of the challenges.
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However, the levels of debt that young people carry as they start out in work remains a problem for as long as we stick to the three-phase life. What if university was something we kept returning to throughout our working lives to enable us to pivot our careers? What if we then had a business model more like subscribing to membership of a university over many years, rather than a debt-financed, one-off degree front-loading a long working life? Part of necessary HE reform has to include new financial models based on lifelong learning that allow us to escape the burden of debt that is putting people off going to our great universities.
Beyond HE, our rigid educational system is matched by rigid funding and an education department that is motivated more by qualification outcomes than by people outcomes. The lifelong learning entitlement and the skills and growth levy are opportunities to change that. The Pissarides review argues for a revised and expanded lifelong learning entitlement to reflect the social right to learn, with wider and more flexible access to learning opportunities. Revision of the LLE is also called for by the Open University to make part-time learning easier; by the Learning and Work Institute; and by the QAA, which wants the funding threshold lowered from 30 credits and an opening up of eligibility to microcredentials and short courses.
The LLE has the potential to enable the interweaving of learning and earning throughout our lives. We also then need to add a strand of learning for leisure, so that we can enjoy a later stage of life, with some work alongside a healthy old age. Lifelong learning must not be solely about skills for growth; it must also be for family learning and for physical and mental health. It must include the arts and humanities, passion-based learning, sports and craft skills.
As lifelong learners, we need better metacognition to understand how we best learn, and thereby be better self-directed learners. This, in turn, goes to core intrapersonal skills of reflection and self-modulation. These are often best taught through the arts, sports and humanities. Resilience skills can be taught and should be nurtured from schools, through FE and HE, and into adult learning. As we all get old, the same skills will help us be healthier and care for ourselves longer, but we will also need to be better at caring for each other. We need these intangible assets of learning as much as the tangible assets of finance and qualifications.
Evermore capable machines are fast emerging, as robotics and generative AI imminently combine to create intelligent agile cyborgs. The competitive threat of these machines will be met only by being better humans. AI is great at what we assess in education, but it really struggles with basic human abilities such as physical perception and social interaction. These are the behaviours that we all have without thinking and that we recognise in others subconsciously. Studying the humanities teaches us about how humans behave and organise themselves. Studying the arts allows us to reflect on how we feel. Therefore, although the STEM subjects are vital in helping us understand what works and what we need, the arts and humanities are essential in understanding why we need and will use them. All this points to the need for more interdisciplinary depth in lifelong learning.
The UK and China are particularly stuck on a craving for narrow disciplinary and specialist knowledge. Our school curriculum is knowledge rich and organised by subject silos. This is further narrowed with A-levels as a reflection of how our universities organise themselves. But, as the Pissarides review says, skills diversity—that is, combining social and technical skills—
“is increasing across the board”
in work, including within “high-tech/digital roles”.
Most subject disciplines have existed for only the last 100 years or so and they do not reflect how we innovate or work. Nobel Prize-winning science tends to come from insights connecting across silos, not so much deep within them. Is it not time for our universities and further education colleges to have more flexible, modular courses, like the US system? Should a lifelong learning system not by design give parity to multidisciplinary learning alongside single disciplinary specialism?
This would be eased by more breadth in the 16 to 19 phase of secondary education and the adoption of digital portfolios to capture achievement as recorded by institutions, employers and awarding bodies. Digital credentials can be held by the individual and shared with whoever they give consent to. That consent allows digital access for prospective employers or admissions offices to drill into what a person can do and has done in a way that will give so much more insight than a paper certificate. Such a system can then live with a person as their ongoing record of lifelong learning and employment. AI tools would be able to match it to labour market opportunities and skills training that could, in turn, transform an individual’s potential to take experience from one career into the next.
Clearly, this all circles back to how the lifelong learning entitlement is rolled out, and the stakes are high. If lifelong learning does not become ingrained in more than the current 50% who take advantage of adult learning, and if it is not enabled by government and employers, we will see technology deskill people who do not have the capacity or confidence to reskill. Those not currently participating in lifelong learning are, of course, the least educated and those who need it the most. The result is enduring productivity issues, unaffordable numbers on long-term sickness benefit and widespread dissatisfaction: a belief that working hard, doing the right thing and trusting traditional democratic government is no longer worth while. That leads to toxic populism, and the vaccination against that poison is lifelong learning.
An education system that is lifelong by design will focus on more than just cognitive intelligence by nurturing more human qualities and interdisciplinary learning, and by integrating learners at whatever age with each other. What does that mean for each stage of our education system? For schools, it means a shift in accountability to value equally sport, the arts and applied learning, such as design and technology, alongside the abstract knowledge valued in the EBacc and Progress 8. Post-16, it requires a much bigger push on project-based qualifications, such as the EPQ, as part of the mix, incentivising voluntary work and more breadth than we currently get from three A-levels.
FE must be positioned as a more universal service for adults both young and old. Colleges should be at the heart of our communities and our local and regional economies. In many ways, we should see them as the platform from which to access a range of learning from the college itself, but also family learning, the University of the Third Age, the OU, other HE in hybrid form, the Workers’ Educational Association and so on. FE could also be the entry point for most businesses. We organise our skills system to meet the needs of large employers, yet less than a fifth of us work for these big businesses. FE should be where most businesses go to help them develop the talent pipelines that they need to compete and flourish.
Apprenticeships and T-levels have a key role to play in this future, but so do other qualifications. If I am right about digital portfolios, these could include certificated courses that are more agile than most regulated qualifications. If such courses are recognised by employers, that ought to be good enough for the rest of us.
Future skills are likely to be higher level. Future growth will predominantly come from technology that craves the excellent graduates from the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial—the golden triangle. However, as I have set out, the opportunities for new business models off the back of modularisation and a lifelong relationship with universities should be encouraged.
Adult skills are usually neglected in this context. The funding is meagre, and the stakes are now high. I am told that the DfE has warned combined authorities to expect cuts to adult education budgets next year. Deskilling will accelerate. Employers must be incentivised to invest in the ongoing learning of staff to develop them for new roles as old roles disappear. Individuals should feel empowered by the adult skills system to trust and not fear the new technology because it is creating as many opportunities for them as it has closed others down, and some of those opportunities will make it easier for them to pursue passions and build mental resilience through the arts and humanities.
This is a big part of the challenge for Skills England and the new growth and skills levy. The levy is the key: it is the opportunity for the new body to engage employers and show them that Skills England is an advance on IfATE. I urge my noble friend to resist any official push that the levy should fund only a narrow set of regulated qualifications. It must be highly responsive to the needs of employers of all sizes in a fast-moving labour market.
If the Treasury is listening—I emphasise “if”—it too will need to work hard on this agenda, especially for FE and adult skills. The price of underfunding will come back to bite through rising spending by the DWP and the economic uncertainty created by swathes of workers checking out and embracing populist politics.
This is critical for the future of our economy and to give individuals hope for their future. We are living at a time when uncertainty is the only certainty, and there has never been a more important time to promote and resource lifelong learning. As Kofi Annan said:
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family”.
I beg to move.
The benefits of lifelong learning are wide-ranging. It can play a huge role in the future world of education the noble Lord described. It can certainly improve employment prospects, and research has also shown that it can benefit social skills and confidence and even improve mental health. One of the things that appeals most to me about it is that it is widely available and usually accessible, even in rural areas.
Our lifelong learning sector is unique, creative and endlessly adaptable. It has been a precious source of social mobility and more for generations. I ask the Minister to reassure the House that its unique nature and provision will not be threatened by all the activity going on in the education sectors that could affect its freedom and its effectiveness. I believe that she will be able to reassure me on that point. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for his widening of all our horizons on the contribution that education makes to our lives and to our nation.
That teaches us that we have to look at the structures and incentives for our institutions to supply lifelong opportunities and not just at the demand that might be generated by making adult student funding more flexible. Whether or not we manage to transform our provision will be about demand and supply, but you cannot just wait for the demand to appear. You have to have incentives to provide the sorts of courses that people want.
There is a huge amount of talk about modules. My sense is that short courses and one-year courses are probably just as important, but we will not find out until we go out there. I would like to flag one recommendation of the Augar review that got nowhere, which was that institutions should be strongly encouraged, if not required, by the regulator to offer higher certificates and higher diplomas rather than treating anything other than a full degree as an exit award that is only really offered if you fail. For some reason that never got anywhere. I have never understood why the DfE did not like it, but somehow it did not and it never went anywhere. I would like to lob it back in.
What I would really like to ask the Minister—but I know she cannot tell me—is when will the regs be laid for the LLE to be activated? When will the roadshows start? Since I cannot get an answer to that, can she assure us that the DfE is considering structures as well as the structure of the lending?
As I turn the pages of the Gospels, I see how Jesus is continually shaping the character of his disciples, how they interacted and how they served others. St Paul, of course, spoke of a well-shaped character being seen in a person of love and joy, peace and forbearance, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I believe that we are continually shaped through a life of learning as if we are clay in the potter’s hand.
Does the Minister agree that vocation and character are two crucial areas for human flourishing and that faith communities have a vital part to play in fostering them as well as other aspects of lifelong learning?
My noble friend Lord Knight and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, mentioned the lifelong learning entitlement. Please let us make it more flexible, more usable and, in the end, more successful, but let us also look at new ways of delivering lifelong learning. Artificial intelligence and technology are transforming the world of work, which is why lifelong learning will be critical for people to return to learn in all kinds of ways. However, artificial intelligence and technology can also deliver and help to spread the opportunity of lifelong learning, including to people who are confined to their home.
My final point, because of the time limit, is very simple. We need lifelong learning to keep us alert and alive and to stave off dementia. I have had a long-standing commitment in the area of dementia, so I know from every possible experience just what a difference it can make if people remain alert and alive at the end of their main working period and throughout their retirement. We have an obligation to ensure that this new Government do not make cuts in what has already been a devastated area of public funding. I appeal to my Government to not condemn austerity and then carry it through. Together, nationally and locally, through civil society, we can make this work.
Before we hear the much-anticipated maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, I want to conclude with another living example, Dr Neville Brown. He is Britain’s oldest teacher and a pioneer of teaching schoolchildren with dyslexia. Last week, he celebrated his 90th birthday with students at the Maple Hayes Hall School for Dyslexics in Lichfield, which he founded 40 years ago. At his school, pupils who were once unable to write their name have gone on to attain good GCSEs, A-levels and university degrees. When interviewed by Lara Davies for BBC local radio, he said that he had absolutely no intention of slowing down or retiring because there are so many more schoolchildren who need his help. We can follow his example and, in doing so, unlock the potential for our golden generation to play their part in growing our economy, enriching our society and realising our full potential as a great nation.
I cherish my Irish roots, but my mother’s words gave me a deep love of Scotland. As I grew up, Scotland faced profound change. There was a clamour for a new kind of politics and a new parliament to address the injustice and inequality that had plagued our nation for too long. Those were exciting times, and I am very proud that on the Labour Benches we achieved that momentous 50:50 representation of women and men.
I served in the Scottish Parliament for 12 years, half of them in the Scottish Cabinet, and that Parliament made its mark early. My own work involved landmark legislation on homelessness and violence against women, and as Housing Minister we fundamentally altered investment in Glasgow’s dilapidated housing through a stock transfer. This would not have been possible without the actions of the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who lifted the stranglehold of the city’s housing debt. That was a clear demonstration of the value of the partnership we have built across the UK, reinforcing my deep belief in a strong, assertive Scottish Parliament, enhanced by the solidarity we must maintain across our nations and regions. Of course, these issues were to the fore during the heady days of the Scottish referendum. As shadow Secretary of State for Scotland during my five years in the other place, I argued then, and I will continue to argue, that the best interests of Scotland are served by leading in the UK, not leaving it.
More recently, I worked internationally to support political and parliamentary development. I recall women in Libya, Myanmar, Guatemala and other countries who, through years of conflict and oppression, have shown resilience, courage and commitment. In this work I found myself translated into different languages: Arabic, Portuguese, Russian and others. Occasionally, my English colleagues would ask for some translation too. I hope that in this House I will not need too much translation, because here voices from Glasgow should be heard. We should hear voices from other parts of the land too—from our inner cities and our rural communities, our islands and our coastal regions. We have to understand the ambitions, talents and aspirations across our land that are too often frustrated and unfulfilled.
It is why sustained programmes of lifelong learning are more important than ever. We must drive change now, as Labour Governments have in the past, to unleash the reservoir of ability and energy that I see every day. That is how we will navigate our way through a changing and turbulent world, fuel economic growth and offer a path to new skills, better jobs and increased prosperity for all.
How are we to help the people affected to adjust and adapt to the new world? It will not necessarily be a brave new world for many of them. Then there are the cohorts of people who did not succeed at school and struggled to get decent work. Many of them are a long way from achieving some of the basic skills that are necessary for life. One of the pleasures I have had was handing out qualification certificates to successful students in the union learning programme that the TUC ran, supported by my noble friend Lord Blunkett when he was Secretary of State. At that stage, in our peak years, we managed to bring 250,000 students through the processes and through the different courses. I am sorry to say that tribal politics took over and that was abolished by Gavin Williamson when he was Secretary of State.
In my view, it is very important that we concentrate on this Bill—on making it succeed and tackle some of the problems that we have. The country deserves it and the people of this country, particularly the ones who missed out at school, really deserve it. It is vital that we get on with it.