Employment: Young People

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct about the importance of language skills, and that is why modern foreign languages have been included in the Ebacc. Yes, we encourage all our hubs in this area to work together: the careers hubs, modern foreign languages hubs and English hubs that we have across the country. The national retraining scheme is currently focused on those over the age of 24 who need to increase their skills to increase their income. That is led by a number of LEPs, and I am sure that they would welcome the introduction of modern foreign languages to that work.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, all the initiatives introduced that the Minister has referred to have to be accessed digitally, but over these last few weeks we have learned that we have digital poverty. Many young people do not have access to a computer, and they fall in the group that most needs support and guidance. What will the Government do to help them? Please do not tell me that it has been solved by the Government’s computer initiative, because we know that is not the case.

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, obviously, digital has become important, but the guidance issued to schools for September talks about their having remote learning from the end of September, so that includes the traditional way of delivering by way of printed packs, which I know many schools have been doing. Although we have been encouraging the use of virtual one-on-one interviews at age 16 over the telephone, of course schools have been encouraged to have some form of one-on-one physical contact with students before the summer holidays.