Adult Learning: Union Learning Fund

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to Unionlearn, the European Social Fund has a lot of provision in place to make sure that those who are hardest to reach for skills training access it. That provision continues until 2023 and will then be replaced by the UK shared prosperity fund, where the Government have committed to matching the existing level of funding going into the future.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, we are all delighted to hear of the additional money going into FE—one wonders how that will pan out. However, as the noble Baroness already said, the Union Learning Fund reached people who are not otherwise reached by learning—250,000 of them, currently. Can the Minister say why this decision has been taken at this stage? Could it be seen as a politically motivated attack on trade unions and their members across the country, who are the very people who benefit from this tremendous fund?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I can reassure the noble Baroness that it is absolutely not a political decision. Many Conservative Governments have supported Unionlearn over the years with over £70 million of funding. The decision was taken based on the fact that we want to increase the scale and reach of our offer. The £2.5 billion national skills fund is illustrative of our ambitions in this area. One of the limitations of Unionlearn is that it is reliant on a trade union presence in the workplace, which can often be more focused on larger employers. For example, it does not necessarily reach unemployed or self-employed people, start-ups, tech, and many more small and medium-sized businesses that do not have union representation.