Both major parties have got it wrong in the past, writes the former employment minister

In 1966, I was leaving school and one of a minority going to University. It was rather expected of the top stream that we would automatically proceed to get degrees but some girls still chose otherwise and there was a reasonable choice: teacher training colleges, PE colleges, nursing training, secretarial colleges and, of course, any of the 30 or so polytechnics. Had it been a boys’ school there would have been additional careers advice about apprenticeships and learning a trade.

Universities were expanding after the Robbins Report established the principle that anyone sufficiently qualified and willing should be admitted, a much-needed but long-overdue initiative at a time when only one in a hundred working class children were benefiting, but they were still functioning as purely academic institutions with strictly academic courses. The state regarded them as an investment in the future and tuition was free and maintenance grants payable depending on parental income.

“How quaint!” was the comment of one of the lecturers interviewing a girl in my hall of residence when she revealed that her father was a miner. Times were changing.

One of the signs of that change was a falling-off of apprenticeship take-up. There were three contributory factors. The first was the role of employers, some of whom were ruthless enough to exploit the apprenticeship scheme as cheap labour, divesting themselves of apprentices as soon as they were qualified and entitled to a normal wage. The second big players in this decline were the trade unions, who wanted employers to pay more to apprentices, despite their inexperience and lack of qualifications. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, there was the attitude of the young people themselves. By the 1980s, the choices that I have described above had multiplied.

Young people who had chosen to leave school because they did not want a future of exams and study began to reject the apprenticeship option for exactly that reason. Why choose poor pay and college courses when you could be free and earning more elsewhere?

Politicians reacted with initiative after initiative and both major parties got it wrong.

The Tories upgraded all the polytechnics to universities in a search for what was termed “parity of esteem”.

The result was that world-class polytechnics became third-rate universities, calling their diplomas degrees and charging accordingly. It has done little to encourage technical excellence but much to increase student debt.

Then Tony Blair decided 50 per cent of school leavers should go to University in the same hunt for the elusive parity of esteem. The brutal truth is that a top mark from Hatfield Polytechnic is unlikely to be preferred by an employer to a lowish grade from the likes of Durham and Exeter, let alone Oxbridge. But it is also true that an old-fashioned apprenticeship is still much respected.

That simple truth being acknowledged, numerous efforts have been made over the last few decades to encourage young people to obtain skills.

When I was an employment minister in the early 1990s, we fought an energetic battle but with mixed success: NVQs (dying out), GNVQs (Gone altogether), Modern Apprenticeships (reformed multiple times and still not prevailing). Always the factors outlined above proved too powerful.

So good luck, Andy Burnham, whose speech yesterday included the usual paean of praise for technical expertise.

In the end, the market is the decisive factor. You do not need to be Charlie Mullins to make a good living from plumbing.

That type of example is worth a thousand exhortations and political initiatives. So is the looming threat of AI, which can research, diagnose and propose remedies but cannot mend the pipes, wire up the new appliance or carry the hods. Yet.