dailynewsnblog
Burnham’s plan for more localised, technical education directly contradicts Labour’s Schools Act, Tories claim
Good morning. In his last speech to Labour’s annual conference as party leader, Keir Starmer called for a fundamental shift in the way education in England operates. While saying he would never “denigrate the aspiration to go to university”, he said that aiming to get 50% of pupils into university was wrong and that it was finally time to show equivalent respect to apprenticeships and technical education. “So, today I can announce we will scrap that [50%] target and replace it with a new ambition, that two-thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship,” Starmer said, to loud applause.
So heaven knows what Starmer is thinking this morning as he hears his successor, Andy Burnham, announce his own plan for “a fundamental change to the education system” that sounds – well, very similar.
Here is our overnight story by Peter Walker and Josh Halliday.
Here is an extract from an article Burnham has written for the Times explaining his thinking. He says:
For too long, we’ve built an education system around the idea that there’s only one route to success: university, a degree, a desk. That opened doors for millions of people, and rightly so. But somewhere along the way, we sent another message too: that if your ambition was to do something that required more technical skills, somehow you were aiming lower.
I think that was one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. In the age of AI, practical and technical skills haven’t become less valuable — they’ve become more valuable than ever. Britain will need brilliant engineers, electricians and cybersecurity experts more than ever before.
Our job — our national task — is to rebuild those ladders of opportunity, rung by rung, step by step, together.
That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice. From the age of 14, we will be giving kids a new option in school: keeping core maths, English and science, but combining them with a real, hands-on technical education. This will include gaining work experience and creating connections with local employers.
And here is the No 10 news release, running to almost 4,000 words.
Life is not fair, and Starmerites will be wondering why Burnham deserves credit for a “change” story that overlaps quite a lot with a headline announcement from his predecessor. Partly it is because, by last autumn, the public had turned against Starmer; Burnham, by contrast, is getting a hearing. But there is also a key difference in what is being proposed. Burnham is linking the need for better vocational education in schools with his belief in localism, his core political philosophy. In his Times article he says:
These new [technical education] routes won’t be designed by Westminster. They’ll be shaped by the people and places they serve. Working with mayors, local leaders, employers and schools, we’ll identify the industries driving growth in local areas and make sure that local kids have a clear route into them.
It is a devolution policy as much as an education policy.
The government news release on this is so long in part because it contains almost 20 endorsements for the policy, from mayors, business groups, union leaders and others. But one organisation not backing it is the Conservative party. It is saying that Burnham’s plans contradict Labour’s Schools Act, which only became law in April.
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said:
We all want to see better opportunities for young people and a boost to technical education, but this announcement is all over the place. Labour have literally just legislated to strip schools of their freedom to choose what’s best for the pupils they’re teaching, yet now they imply it should be locally tailored. It’s not clear whether or not Labour intends to replace GCSEs, which would be a disaster. The focus should be on the knowledge rich curriculum that has helped the most deprived children.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Kemi Badenoch holds a press conference, where she will challenge Burnham to introduce emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in the prisoner early release scheme due to start in the autumn.
Morning: Burnham is on a visit in Derbyshire, where he is due to speak to the media.
Noon: Labour’s national executive committee meets, with Bridget Phillipson, appointed last night as the new party chair, attending.
2pm: Lucy Powell, the education secretary, is interviewed by Matt Chorley on Radio 5 Live.
As I explained earlier this month, we are no longer going to have comments open below the line on this blog. From today, if you want to contact me, or anyone else writing the blog when I am not here, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints. There is a longer post here about how we hope this will work.
Key events
Reform UK’s Suella Braverman says Burnham right to want more focus on technical learning – but she doubts it will happen
Reform UK has issued its response to Andy Burnham’s proposal for more localised, vocational education. It is in the form of a statement from Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary who is now Reform’s education spokesperson. She is a bit more positive about it than her old party. (See 9.16am.) She says:
Reform UK has long argued that Britain needs a technical and vocational renaissance alongside a genuine skills revolution.
For too long, the philosopher has been valued more than the plumber. We welcome any effort to rebalance the scales, but we’ve been here before. Successive prime ministers have promised parity of esteem and failed to deliver.
It’s time to end the great university scam and ensure every child, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to thrive.
For his warm words, we do not expect the prime minister to deliver.
Braverman is right to say successive governments have promised to ensure that technical education gets parity of esteem with university education. Andrew McDonald and Megan McElroy have a good summary in their London Playbook briefing for Politico. They say:
Spot the difference: “A new ‘T-level’ system, which overhauls how technical education is taught and administered, aims to put the courses on an equal footing with academic work,” announced in Philip Hammond’s 2017 budget … “We need finally to do what we always promise we will — to elevate practical and technical qualifications, so that we recognize their immense value to society and to the individual,” Boris Johnson, 2019 … “Technical education is not given the respect it deserves but today, I am changing all of that, pulling one of the biggest levers we have to change the direction of our country,” Rishi Sunak in 2023 as he announced plans for a British baccalaureate … “While you will never hear me denigrate the aspiration to go to university, I don’t think the way we currently measure success in education — that ambition to get 50 per cent of kids to uni — I don’t think that’s right for our times,” Keir Starmer, 2025 … “That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice,” Andy Burnham, 2026.
In fact, this trend goes back way, way further. The first political speech I covered as a reporter, in 1990 (when I was on the South Wales Echo), was by Peter Walker, the then Welsh secretary. He was talking about the need for better technical education and he quoted from a select committee report saying Britain should copy what the Germans were doing in this area; it was a report written in the 19th century.
Burnham says 45% fall in small boat arrivals compared to this point last year suggests ‘plan is working’
Andy Burnham has been criticised by Reform UK, and some figures at GB News, for not mentioning small boats during his first week in power. In his pooled TV clip this morning the interviewer, who has to ask questions on behalf of all UK broadcasters, posed the GB News question, asking Burnham about the almost 900 people who arrived on small boats in the past week.
Burnham said:
The home secretary [Shabana Mahmood] has brought forward a very rigorous plan in relation to this, and let’s remember, the numbers can fluctuate but overall boat crossings are down, down quite significantly year on year. So that does suggest that the plan is working.
Burnham also said he discussed small boats “repeatedly” during the Makerfield byelection campaign.
The public wants to see control being exerted, and while we’ve made progress, there is more to do, and I recognise that completely.
But the trend is down, and the number of people being removed is up, so the figures are pointing in a better direction. But there is much more to do.
According to recent Home Office figures, 13,007 arrivals have been recorded this year, the Press Association reports. This is 45% lower than the number recorded by this time last year and down 18% on the same period in 2024.
Burnham says he is committed to reducing number of Neet young people
Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister, is carrying out a government review intended to address the crisis of the growing number of Neets – young people not in education, employment or training. His first report, analysing the causes of the problem, was published in May to wide acclaim. He is due to publish a final report with recommendations in the autumn.
The plan announced by Andy Burnham today for more localised, technical education is not just a response to the Neets problem. But it overlaps with what Milburn is recommending, and in a statement Milburn said:
The changes the PM is announcing today are very welcome. They are a big step in the right direction and consistent with the findings of my review. A whole system reset is needed across health, welfare and labour market policy as well as in education and skills. I know the PM recognises this and my final report will outline the further changes that are needed.
Milburn was with Burnham on a visit to promote the plan in Derby this morning.
Speaking to the media this morning, Burnham said he was committed to getting Neet numbers down. He said:
Obviously, the trend is rising at the moment, so first thing I’ve got to do is to stop that rise.
It’s hard to say and put a firm date on it at the moment when you can say there are fewer than now, but certainly I am completely on a mission with relation to this. I cannot accept the situation where we have so many young people in their 20s on benefits. It’s just not right for them.
Burnham also said young people were not to blame for the fact they could not find work.
It would be wrong to blame the young people when we have an education system that doesn’t set them up properly, where some struggle to find opportunities at 16, where work experience and work placements aren’t there for them. We’ve got to put those building blocks in place, and then, in time, that number will come down.
And I will commit, in my time in office, to get the number of young people who are not in education, employment, and training down. I will commit to that. When precisely I can get there is a hard thing to say right now.
Badenoch urges Burnham to revoke Sentencing Act commencement order
At her press conference, Kemi Badenoch blamed Covid for the fact that the last Conservative government left the country short of prison places.
She said:
We know that the situation with prisons is challenging. When we were in government, we saw the challenge. We created 14,000 new prison places – it was nowhere near enough.
We had a prison-building target in our manifesto. Covid derailed that programme.
We’d sold some prisons to get the money to build new ones but the programme, as I said, was derailed.
Badenoch conceded that the Tories also had an early release scheme. But she said theirs was not like Labour’s.
We also had early release but not like this. We never had this category of prisoners being released. We never had killers, rapists, paedophiles on early release. That is what I want to stop.
She also said that Burnham could act “today” to stop the releases. She explained:
If Andy Burnham wants to prove that he is serious about this, he needs to revoke the commencement order [the regulation saying the Sentencing Act measures will come into force on 2 September]. That is a simple action that I’m asking for today.
It’s quite clear that the prime minister sees that this is a problem, but I don’t think he knows what to do about it.
We have done the work. We know that we need to revoke the commencement order immediately – he could do that today. That would show that he is really pausing it.
And then he needs to bring in emergency legislation by 2 September.
This can be done – we heard the government talk about bringing in emergency legislation for a bank holiday if we won the World Cup. They can do this and we will be here to help them facilitate that.
Kemi Badenoch is holding her press conference now. She is speaking alongside women who are victims of rape and sexual assault and who are speaking about the trauma they are experiencing knowing that their attackers will be released early in the autumn.
Badenoch said that Andy Burnham’s announcement of a “pause” in the process was pointless, given that offenders were not due to be released until Septembe anyway.
She said the government should already have a plan to address the problem. This should not be a party political issue, she said.
Burnham says pause in early prisoner release scheme ‘a real process’ and he will do ‘anything I can’ to minimise risk
Andy Burnham has recorded a pooled TV interview this morning.
Asked about the Sentencing Act, and whether he was considering amending the legislation before it came into effect, Burnham just insisted that the pause in the process he announced last week was “real” and that further statements would be made in due course.
He said:
The pause is real, and it was one of the first things I did coming into office last week. So the September releases [are] on hold.
And … the review that I have instigated is also a real process. We are taking a very serious look at the situation.
Of course, this goes back a number of years when the previous government failed to put in place the prison places needed, so it is a challenging situation, and we shouldn’t actually be in this position as a country.
But we have to deal with the reality of where we are. But I will do anything I can to minimise risk to the public. And that is why I am looking again …
We’ll make further statements on this in due course.
Badenoch calls for emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in prisoner early release scheme
Kemi Badenoch is about to hold a press conference where she will be urging Andy Burnham to pass emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in the prisoner early release scheme due to start in the autumn. This is what the party said about the announcement in a news release overnight.
The Conservatives have been campaigning against the early release of violent and sexual offenders since Labour decided to do this in 2024 and we welcome the prime minister’s U-turn. But the prime minister’s review, or as he is now calling it a “brief pause”, has changed nothing in law – without legislation violent and sexual offenders will be released on 2 September. Given parliament is only scheduled to return on 1 September, Conservatives will back fast-tracked emergency legislation.
Sex offenders, including rapists and the evil rape gang perpetrators, should remain behind bars where they belong, but Labour want to let them back on the street. To make matters worse, many victims have not been properly informed about the release of their abusers.
The Conservatives warned this would happen when we opposed Labour’s Sentencing Act … We tabled amendments to the original Sentencing bill when it was in Parliament to exempt rapists, paedophiles, and other serious offenders from automatic early release. These Conservative amendments were blocked by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Of course, Labour says it had to pass the Sentencing Act because, during the 14 years when the Tories were in power, they regularly passed laws imposing longer while at the same time refusing to build the extra prisons needed to house a growing jail population. As a result, when Rishi Sunak called the general election in 2024, the overcrowding crisis was so serious that the system was days away from collapse.
Burnham’s plan for more localised, technical education directly contradicts Labour’s Schools Act, Tories claim
Good morning. In his last speech to Labour’s annual conference as party leader, Keir Starmer called for a fundamental shift in the way education in England operates. While saying he would never “denigrate the aspiration to go to university”, he said that aiming to get 50% of pupils into university was wrong and that it was finally time to show equivalent respect to apprenticeships and technical education. “So, today I can announce we will scrap that [50%] target and replace it with a new ambition, that two-thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship,” Starmer said, to loud applause.
So heaven knows what Starmer is thinking this morning as he hears his successor, Andy Burnham, announce his own plan for “a fundamental change to the education system” that sounds – well, very similar.
Here is our overnight story by Peter Walker and Josh Halliday.
Here is an extract from an article Burnham has written for the Times explaining his thinking. He says:
For too long, we’ve built an education system around the idea that there’s only one route to success: university, a degree, a desk. That opened doors for millions of people, and rightly so. But somewhere along the way, we sent another message too: that if your ambition was to do something that required more technical skills, somehow you were aiming lower.
I think that was one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. In the age of AI, practical and technical skills haven’t become less valuable — they’ve become more valuable than ever. Britain will need brilliant engineers, electricians and cybersecurity experts more than ever before.
Our job — our national task — is to rebuild those ladders of opportunity, rung by rung, step by step, together.
That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice. From the age of 14, we will be giving kids a new option in school: keeping core maths, English and science, but combining them with a real, hands-on technical education. This will include gaining work experience and creating connections with local employers.
And here is the No 10 news release, running to almost 4,000 words.
Life is not fair, and Starmerites will be wondering why Burnham deserves credit for a “change” story that overlaps quite a lot with a headline announcement from his predecessor. Partly it is because, by last autumn, the public had turned against Starmer; Burnham, by contrast, is getting a hearing. But there is also a key difference in what is being proposed. Burnham is linking the need for better vocational education in schools with his belief in localism, his core political philosophy. In his Times article he says:
These new [technical education] routes won’t be designed by Westminster. They’ll be shaped by the people and places they serve. Working with mayors, local leaders, employers and schools, we’ll identify the industries driving growth in local areas and make sure that local kids have a clear route into them.
It is a devolution policy as much as an education policy.
The government news release on this is so long in part because it contains almost 20 endorsements for the policy, from mayors, business groups, union leaders and others. But one organisation not backing it is the Conservative party. It is saying that Burnham’s plans contradict Labour’s Schools Act, which only became law in April.
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said:
We all want to see better opportunities for young people and a boost to technical education, but this announcement is all over the place. Labour have literally just legislated to strip schools of their freedom to choose what’s best for the pupils they’re teaching, yet now they imply it should be locally tailored. It’s not clear whether or not Labour intends to replace GCSEs, which would be a disaster. The focus should be on the knowledge rich curriculum that has helped the most deprived children.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Kemi Badenoch holds a press conference, where she will challenge Burnham to introduce emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in the prisoner early release scheme due to start in the autumn.
Morning: Burnham is on a visit in Derbyshire, where he is due to speak to the media.
Noon: Labour’s national executive committee meets, with Bridget Phillipson, appointed last night as the new party chair, attending.
2pm: Lucy Powell, the education secretary, is interviewed by Matt Chorley on Radio 5 Live.
As I explained earlier this month, we are no longer going to have comments open below the line on this blog. From today, if you want to contact me, or anyone else writing the blog when I am not here, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints. There is a longer post here about how we hope this will work.
