Women: Training and Upskilling
Debate between Baroness Prosser and Baroness Wilcox
Baroness Prosser
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their plans with regard to training and upskilling women workers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, we want to build a stronger, more prosperous nation and to help women who are on career breaks or upskilling, who wish to return to work or to improve, to make a full contribution to our economic future. We recognise that the skill needs and barriers to opportunity vary widely for each individual, with women often having a more fragmented career path. That is why we are reforming the skills system to make it responsive to the needs of different groups and to ensure that we draw on the talents and skills of all.
Baroness Prosser
I thank the Minister for that reply. Between 2006 and 2012, the Women in Work Sector Pathways initiative provided, via the sector skills councils, training for almost 25,000 women, with employers’ contributions in cash and kind far outstripping those of the Government. Will the Minister tell the House what measures will be taken to ensure that women get a fair share of available training under the new employers’ investment fund, how this is to be measured and what strictures will be laid on employers to encourage them to include women?
Baroness Wilcox
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, chaired the Women and Work Commission, the Women’s National Commission and is now deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, so to answer a question from her required a bit of study on my part. She was kind enough to let me have sight of her supplementary question. The Women and Work Sector Pathways Initiative was indeed very successful. That is why funding has been made available to sector skills councils to build on that legacy. In addition, the United Kingdom Commission for Employment and Skills has today said that it is willing to consider bids specifically to take forward the work of the Pathways Initiative. We want employers to take greater ownership of a skills system that provides better opportunities for women, so one of the criteria for the bids is their sustainability in upskilling women.
Fair Employment Agency
Debate between Baroness Prosser and Baroness Wilcox
Baroness Prosser
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the proposal by Citizens Advice that the current five employment rights enforcement agencies be merged into a single fair employment agency.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, the Government are currently reviewing their workplace rights compliance and enforcement arrangements to see whether there is scope to make them more streamlined and effective. We will announce our initial findings later this year.
Baroness Prosser
I thank the Minister for that reply. Clearly, I welcome the establishment by the previous Government of the single pay and work rights helpline. However, does the Minister agree that taxpayers’ money could be saved and the service to vulnerable workers improved if that helpline was administered by one helpline or agency? Further, will she explain how the service provided by the current helpline could be widened to enable it to address the issue of entitlement to paid holidays? That issue was found by government-funded research to be by far the most common employment-related complaint brought by clients of the citizens advice bureaux. Currently, it can be resolved only by application to the Employment Tribunal Service.
Baroness Wilcox
I think the first question was to do with Citizens Advice. The review of our compliance and enforcement arrangements is ongoing and part of it is to look at the different enforcement structures that bodies such as Citizens Advice have put forward. The answers from that will come to us in October. On holiday entitlements and workers with holiday pay problems—I imagine that that is what the noble Baroness is really getting at here—at the moment, advice on holiday pay is available on the Government’s Directgov website. ACAS offers pre-claim conciliation. Then and only then, if all else fails, do you go to a tribunal. I hope that that is helpful.