Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Like her, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 15 and 33 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal. I agree with the comment on those by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, that the Bill still very much lacks a clear vision of the structure that we are trying to create.

I will speak mainly in favour of Amendment 85 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady Blackstone and Lady Sheehan, noting that it has full cross-party and non-party support. Indeed, I would have added my name had there been space available to do so.

It is interesting that the last national skills audit was more than a decade ago but, even then, conservation and environmental protection officers were at the top of the list of a growing area of demand. Town planners were also high on the list. Since then, of course, austerity has hit local government extremely hard and, as we were discussing yesterday on the Environment Bill, they are not currently funded adequately to meet their existing responsibilities, let alone their upcoming responsibilities under the Bill, which has undoubtedly had an impact on the demand for jobs.

I note that this debate is particularly timely, given that it comes the day after the release of the Green Jobs Taskforce report, which does at least some of the job that the amendment proposes. Although it focuses purely on the climate emergency, not the biodiversity crisis or the way in which a systems approach shows how these problems link to many of the other issues in our society, it is also very much a report that reflects a business-as-usual-with-added-technology approach, failing to acknowledge the need for economic and social innovation and the skills that go with those. It talks about engineers and construction workers for offshore wind farms and nuclear plants, retrofitters for homes to make them energy-efficient and comfortable and car mechanics servicing electric vehicles and vans. There are many other jobs that we clearly need that are not covered by that.

With this Bill, I find myself thinking yet again that the narrow focus on jobs is a dangerous mistake. The amendment talks about a strategic audit, but what does the country actually need? Thinking of some examples off the top of my head, we need far more gardening skills for growing food and managing the home gardens that will be so crucial to our biodiversity and the survival and thriving of so many of our species. We need community-building skills for resilience and climate adaptation. I think of the city of Lancaster where, a few years ago, I chaired for the Green House think tank a session examining the experience of the disastrous floods there in 2015 and the community response. A training session based on what Lancaster learned the hard way for every community in this land would be a very good idea. For the kind of resilience that the future is going to demand of us—I point noble Lords to the tragic events happening in Germany as we speak—we clearly need community-building skills. The divisions in our society and the social issues that have come to the fore in recent weeks are real barriers to tackling the climate emergency and the nature crisis. Something else very practical that comes to mind is first aid. These are skills that we need for every community and just about every person in this land.

I am not sure that even this amendment is as broad as it needs to be, but it is a good start as an acknowledgment that we need our skills for jobs, at least, in many different areas and we need to think much more broadly in a systematic, comprehensive kind of way.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in support of Amendment 85 in particular, to which I have added my name.

We had a long debate on the first day of Committee about issues relating to the economy of the future, the new industrial landscape and the overwhelming need to ensure that workers have the skills necessary for the jobs of the future, and that workers who will have to transition from their current employment are given the opportunity to reskill in order to do so. In her response, the Minister was very helpful in assuring us of the Government’s recognition of those priorities, the important role that they will play in future and how they will need to form part of the background—if I can put it that way—to local skills improvement plans.

However, as many others have said already, we do not yet join up the dots in this Bill. We do not respond to the recommendations of the Green Jobs Taskforce, which were just highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, nor those of the Climate Change Committee, which in its recent progress report to Parliament recommended that the Government

“develop a strategy for a Net Zero workforce that ensures a just transition for workers transitioning from high-carbon to … climate-resilient jobs”

and

“integrates relevant skills into the UK’s education framework”.

We do not see the way in which that will be done; nor, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, do we see how we can ensure that local skills improvement plans look to the future, not just the present. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we do not see how they fit in or how to ensure that national priorities are understood and integrated into those plans in locally relevant ways.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about the ecosystem for skills and post-16 education and training. I do not think that we can get the ecosystem right unless we ensure that the national priorities—they are accepted by the Government in the 10-point plan, in all their documentation and in the words of Ministers all the time—have a proper way of filtering down, not by framing it as “a man in Whitehall knows best” and dictating what happens at local level but by providing a coherent national framework in which the essentially local work that takes account of place, as we spoke about last week, can be undertaken.

I very much hope that the Minister will understand our need for mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that this national framework is clearly in place, and that it will support and underpin the work that is done at the local level.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hayman]

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 13, after “circumstances” insert “including consideration of whether such future skills, capabilities or expertise would align with the achievement of the United Kingdom’s net zero target as contained in section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 (the target for 2050),”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that when considering whether post-16 technical education or training is “material” to a specified area, consideration must also be given as to whether such future skills, capabilities or expertise align with the UK’s net zero target.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 3 and in doing so I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. I also apologise for not being able to be present at the Second Reading of the Bill—but I am delighted that many of the issues with which this group of amendments deal were raised by other noble Lords who will be speaking later today.

In introducing this group of amendments, I will speak to Amendments 3, 9 and 25, which I have tabled. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who is sadly unavoidably unable to participate this afternoon, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, for adding their names to this amendment. I also support and will speak briefly to other amendments in this group.

Unlike many who are participating in today’s debate, I am no expert in the field of skills and post-16 education—although I have to say that I think the last two and a half hours have given me a little bit of a crash course in some of the issues that will be more familiar to others here. But one does not have to be an expert to understand that the economy of the future—the shift to a green and sustainable industrial model—will require an innovative redesign of the UK’s education and skills framework, both to equip young workers for those jobs and to support a just transition for workers in carbon-intensive industries that will simply not exist in the future.

This was clearly articulated in a report published yesterday by the think tank Onward, Qualifying for the Race to Net Zero, which highlights how unprepared Britain’s labour market is for the challenges and opportunities of net zero. It says:

“This is a challenge of paramount importance. Without the labour supply or the skills base to develop net technologies or deliver the decarbonisation of existing industry or housing stock”


net zero is simply “not deliverable”. The Government’s overarching ambitions regarding climate change and our obligations under the Paris Agreement are threatened by a lack of skills in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 4 (to Amendment 3) withdrawn.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I am glad we gave the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, the opportunity to have her fix of controversialism for the day—although I was rather surprised to hear what I innocently thought was a reasonable set of probing amendments, on an issue of globally recognised seriousness and urgency, described as some sort of Stalinist implementation of a political hobbyhorse.

However, be that as it may, I am also extremely grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive response. I am glad to know that we have, within the department with responsibility for COP 26, a Minister who is taking this Bill through the House. I have absolutely no doubt about her seriousness and good faith in wanting to ensure that the issues which so many people from so many sides of the House have raised today are taken seriously; that we equip our economy to respond to the direction of travel in future; and that our young people, and those whose working lives are changed, have the ability to go forward in other new jobs in the future.

I suspect the Minister will not be surprised if I say I am not totally satisfied with the argument that we do not need anything in the Bill. I am slightly emboldened by my experience so far on this issue—in fact, I feel like a cracked record in taking this forward. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, spoke about the work we did on a cross-party basis on the Financial Services Bill, where we had exactly the same sorts of debate with the Government reassuring us of their good faith and their ability to do things external to the Bill. Eventually, through discussion, we managed to find a way forward to put something into the Bill. We did the same thing on the Pension Schemes Bill, where we had exactly the same arguments that it was not necessary to do this. I am delighted to say that now, if I ever I go to a meeting or listen to anything about pensions, I hear Ministers proudly proclaiming how, in the year of COP 26, we are the first country in the world to include climate considerations and net-zero in legislation on pensions.

I am encouraged that we may be able to take this further. I hope that we can do so on a consensual basis and that, perhaps, between Committee and Report, we will be able to have discussions with the Minister about whether that is possible. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.