Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Verma Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking my noble friend the Minster for the way she introduced this very important piece of legislation today. I also join them in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Black of Strome, on her maiden speech.

The Bill highlights areas that in my view have for far too long not received the government attention that reflects their importance. If we are to be an outward-facing global country, the development of skills permitted by the Bill will be critical. The key areas that I want to address briefly today concern the lifelong learning that should be available to all if we are to become that global, competitive country. There is no such thing as “a job for life” anymore. We live in a world where all jobs are expected to be fluid and interchangeable, and to have technology and digital skills at the centre of their roles. Whether it is in construction or in the new emerging economy, our future job roles will need all those skills, from basic technology to intricate digital mapping and AI skills.

Therefore, access to skills training and opportunities to move across sectors will be critical for an agile and quick-reacting economy such as ours. As others have said, will my noble friend ensure that there are no barriers to accessing new qualifications, even if people have already benefited from entry-level qualifications? Lifelong learning must mean exactly that. Employment needs are changing at pace and we must not stop at entry-level roles, as that in itself stops employment development.

I also place a strong emphasis on the importance of language skills. So many times we hear of people from minority communities being exploited in poorly paid roles or, sadly, in some instances being subject to modern-day slavery simply because they lack language skills. It is not good enough to have funding provided to local authorities without clear evidence of how that funding provides tangible, measurable results. The pandemic has shone a light on the fragility of communities in their struggle to protect themselves from not just the pandemic but abuse. They lack access to educational tools and support for families in multigenerational households. We need to address the poverty of learning. I say to my noble friend that these are deeply embedded, long-standing problems that have been ignored for decades.

I will also touch on life skills and experiences. Like many noble Lords, I have participated in educational political surgeries with schools. I recently did one with a high school in Gloucester. There, I was really encouraged to hear the thoughtful and pragmatic approach students had to the world around them. The key points that stuck in my mind included whether focusing on exams at the end of a year was an outdated approach to measuring a student’s potential. Some are great at sitting exams, but many are not. They want a true reflection of their abilities to be measured, rather than just leaving it to the end of the year. Real life does not exist in vacuums, so why should the student experience?

The students also wanted greater exposure to real-life skills such as financial literacy, budgets, and debt management. I thank one particular student called Rose, who made the point so beautifully that I realised how poorly qualified I had been when I left school to manage the businesses I manage now. They were incredibly sensible and practical asks for those thinking about the future jobs market.

Careers advice needs to be delivered by a combination of factors, with technical, business and academic-informed provision. This does not stop or start with young people, but should be available for everyone. Employment will undoubtedly change many times over in our working lifetimes, but people in their mid-40s upwards who might lose their jobs because of the pandemic will need skills to meet the new and current requirements of the jobs market today and in the future. We cannot airbrush these groups out because they do not make a loud noise. Their past experiences mean they need the new skills. I therefore urge my noble friend to make support easily accessible to these groups. Please do not forget that we have a pool of people who will feel that they have been left behind.

Finally, let us celebrate alternative routes to top jobs. Let us treat alternatives to degrees with parity. I have raised this in the House on many occasions: how are the Government monitoring career progression across the Civil Service and Whitehall, where we see less and less inclusion and diversity as we go higher up the organisation? Will my noble friend go back to looking at the levelling-up agenda being not just for the private sector but for all sectors where education and skills play a huge role, so we reach the large pockets of the population who remain on the edges of communities, without hope or help? Let this important Bill be the real game-changer for those communities with untapped potential, such as those in my city of Leicester, that will need ongoing support, particularly after the pandemic.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in the report there are a number of recommendations in relation to crime and policing. One is about setting up independent safeguarding partnerships locally. There is also, obviously, the recommendation that police forces should reflect the communities they serve. On the point specifically raised by the noble Lord, there is an innovative recommendation that exposed the commissioners to an allegation that they supported the legalisation of drugs because they wanted to see the increased use of out-of-court penalties for the kind of class B possession that they outlined in the report. We are looking seriously at those recommendations but obviously, we know that our police forces should reflect the communities that they serve and that everyone should have confidence that the police are there to protect them, not target them.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is important to consistently measure progress, or the lack of it, as we do with gender? This Government have been at the forefront of challenging companies and public sector organisations on gender issues. The report agrees that racism is still deeply imbedded and, exists across many sectors of life, and that the colour of your skin remains a big issue. I have grown up in this country; I know what it feels like to be discriminated against and called names. It is important that we start by examining how employment across Whitehall is monitored and ensure that career support is provided for people entering with non-traditional qualifications. Will she look at why, in authorities like mine in Leicester city where more than 50% of the population is non-white, there seems to be not one person of colour in a director role at the local authority offices?

International Women’s Day

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register as chair of UN Women UK, as co-chair of the APPG for UN Women, along with Maria Miller, and as an adult social care provider. I want to focus most of my time on women from the minority communities. Covid has really magnified issues facing women across the country but more so, I believe, it has demonstrated how little we know about accessing those women from the minority communities who have probably faced greater challenges being in communities where there are language constraints, social isolation and often little access to separate disposable income. There is also a general lack of understanding of BAME issues across many agencies.

I have looked at issues concerning women for as long as I can remember but, over this last year or so, some of the phone calls and emails that I have received have really worried me. I have urged the House every time I can to raise the issue of people from minority communities, particularly women, although we all know that the incidence of violence against women has risen during this period. Women who have no voice or do not know how to access services are unreported, so we do not really know the numbers. We do not know how many people from minority communities are going to come out of the pandemic with huge mental health issues, and with huge problems in just readjusting their lives if they have had to try to home-school without being able to understand fully whether they are providing enough support for their children.

I remember a case not that long ago where I saw a couple from a minority community living in a multi- generational household. After the woman had given birth, she unfortunately became very sick and was unable to communicate verbally or to walk and she had uncontrollable movements. That meant that her husband was left to raise their new baby and manage a disabled wife and an elderly mother. This man was carrying his wife up and down the stairs on his back because he did not have the skills to understand how to access services. There are a lot of issues around minority communities that concern me.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, for raising the issue of care workers. As an adult social care provider, I want to pay tribute to care workers across the country. They have worked tirelessly and, as often as not, have been the quiet unsung heroes who will continue to work long after this wretched pandemic has gone. We need to facilitate better recognition of care work as a profession rather than looking at it as having a low-paid, unskilled workforce. Care workers are among the most skilled people I know, and I hope that after the pandemic we will have a decent, detailed discussion on how we manage people who work in the care sector.

Covid-19: Ethnic Minority Disparities

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the pandemic has indeed revealed many inequalities, including health inequalities across certain communities. That is not linked only to race: we also believe that certain coastal communities will have been disproportionately affected by the virus. However, we are aiming many of our schemes at those populations within the ethnic minority community; for instance, with the apprenticeship schemes we have had specific promotion to ensure that black and minority ethnic people take up those opportunities where they disproportionately do not do so.

[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, are my noble friend the Minister and her department looking at post-Covid job creation, particularly among the low-skilled BAME communities? I reflect on my own home city of Leicester, where many jobs have been lost. If we are going to try to level up, as she has just said, we need to ensure that the right services and right interventions are in place. Will she consider looking at a pilot scheme to go into Leicester to do the levelling-up agenda on the skills matrix?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, being relatively local to Leicester in origin, I pay tribute to the people of Leicester, who I think have endured the longest period of restrictions of any part of the country. One of the few pieces of good news for the House over recent weeks has been the FE and skills White Paper and the focus on higher technical qualifications. We are focused on giving skills to people, particularly in low-income jobs, through the lifelong learning entitlement so that while earning they can train themselves up to get better-paid and better-quality work. I will take away the specific idea of a pilot to the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills.

Covid-19: Early Years Sector

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in the autumn and summer terms, the Government paid out the entitlements regardless of the number of children attending these settings. As attendance rose during the autumn, we gave notice to the sector that we were moving back to a per-child-attending basis of funding. Tomorrow is the census, when we will have an up-to-date picture of how many are in attendance in those settings. What is essential at the moment is that the department monitors the market and what is happening in this sector to be able to have the most up-to-date information on the sustainability of those settings, as the noble Lord quite rightly outlines.

[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister knows that domestic violence during Covid has increased dramatically and scarily. As there are reduced visits from health professionals, can she tell me what work is being done with local community groups to ensure that children—particularly from BAME communities where English is not the first language—are not left without any support? I understand the six-to-eight-week visit after a baby is born, but these children are pre-school age and need to be monitored, particularly in the most vulnerable households.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, we have specifically requested that, if those children already classified as vulnerable are not attending early years settings, those settings do their best to get in touch with the children. That is why it has also been important to look at the role of the voluntary sector. The department has given £11 million to the Barnardo’s-led See, Hear, Respond initiative, which is a consortium of charities for those children who are not yet known to be vulnerable. We have sadly had around 1,500 referrals through that initiative.

Agreement Establishing an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

The final element with regard to the committee’s report is, in conclusion, that I hope that the points that have been raised can be addressed by the Government. It would be unwelcome to have to use the extreme measures under the CRaG process to try to delay the implementation of some of those agreements. That is not my intention; my intention is to bring this to the Chamber to allow there to be a debate in which these issues can be aired. Finally, I hope, as I said when I started, that when it comes to other agreements the Government intend that there will be an opportunity for them to be laid in the Chamber so that Members will have an opportunity to raise them. When it comes to agreements that represent more than 0.1% of UK trade, there could be major issues that we would need to discuss beyond simply having a report mechanism and moving an extreme action against the agreements. I hope that the Government will consider these issues as constructive and will welcome the opportunity for them to be raised. In so doing, I again pay tribute to the EU Select Committee, which has done a sterling job in making sure that these issues have been properly scrutinised.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I rise as a member of the European Union Select Committee, which has reported on these agreements, and as chair of the External Affairs Sub-Committee, which considered the Chile and eastern and southern Africa states agreements. The committee’s 31st report is tagged alongside the three Motions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for recognising the hard work that the Select Committee does. There are one or two areas that he mentioned that I may refer to during my brief intervention.

I begin by pointing out that tonight’s debate is the first of its kind. Since parliamentary scrutiny of treaties was codified in statute in Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, neither House has debated a Motion like those that are being debated tonight. It was due to Brexit and the need for the Government to roll over a large number of existing EU international agreements that the Procedure Committee recognised the need for Parliament to scrutinise these agreements and decided that the European Union Committee should take on that task.

It has been a major task, and staff from across the EU committees have worked long and hard to ensure that we could deliver on that task. Today, we published our sixth report in six weeks. It scrutinised another, still more complex, agreement: the UK-Swiss trade agreement. This is demanding work for the committee, so it is important that noble Lords engage more widely in our findings. As a committee, we welcome tonight’s debate regardless of whether, as individual members, we support the Motions introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. Having this debate shows that the House understands the importance of these agreements and that it is prepared to commit time and resources to doing a proper job of scrutiny. It also puts down a marker for the future, when the Government may enter into fresh negotiations on major new trade deals with the United States or with other countries, that the House of Lords intends to be fully engaged. I hope tonight’s debate will be the first of many.

I will now briefly recap the points made by the committee on these treaties. I emphasise that we have not recommended that they should not be ratified—far from it. But we have raised some points that merit further debate, and I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s response. First, there is the scale and sequencing of the Government’s programme of rollover trade agreements. The three agreements that we are considering tonight are tiny, representing in total around one-quarter of 1% of UK trade. The Swiss agreement, which I have just mentioned, is of course much bigger, so that is welcome progress. But important agreements with Japan, Canada and South Korea have yet to materialise. We would like to know when they will appear. If we leave the EU on 29 March, which will mean the default position in law, how will the Government mitigate the risk of disruption to the terms of UK trade?

Next we highlight the inconsistency of consultation with the devolved Administrations, which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to. We understand, of course, that international trade is a reserved competence. But, as the department’s recent paper on parliamentary scrutiny of international agreements acknowledges, trade intersects with many areas of devolved competence. The devolved Administrations should not be closed out of the process. The Government’s approach to consultation has been patchy. The devolved Administrations have been shown drafts of some non-trade agreements—such as the agreement with Ireland on social security and the agreement with Switzerland on citizens’ rights—but have not been shown drafts of the DIT’s rollover trade agreements. Is the Minister able to respond to that? If the aim of these agreements is to ensure continuity of the existing terms of trade, there is no need for secrecy.

The Welsh Government have written to us to say that the Government’s approach to these agreements has fallen very short of their expectations and that it should not set a precedent for the handling of future free trade agreements. Will my noble friend the Minister undertake that drafts of future rollover agreements—or at least relevant sections—will be shared with the devolved Administrations?

We also raised the question of the modification of free trade agreements. Ratification is not the end of the process. These agreements can be subject to amendments and modifications, so ongoing engagement with stakeholders and with Parliament is essential. As a committee, we have repeatedly asked for clarity on when amendments to agreements will engage the CRaG Act procedures, but we have yet to receive a convincing answer. Will the Minister undertake that the Government will state clearly in future Explanatory Memoranda the circumstances in which amendments to agreements will or will not engage the CRaG Act?

I note that we are tonight well beyond the point at which agreements could have been laid in time to complete the full 21 sitting-day CRaG scrutiny process before 29 March. Is my noble friend able to explain how the Government will approach scrutiny of future rollover agreements? Can she say whether in some cases agreements will be provisionally applied ahead of formal ratification, and how will the Government deal with those that cannot be provisionally applied?

As I said, scrutinising these agreements within the time limits prescribed in the CRaG Act has been a big piece of work. I realise that discussions on future parliamentary scrutiny are continuing and I welcome the DIT’s paper of two weeks ago. It showed a willingness to engage with committees earlier in the process. However, we need earlier, fuller scrutiny, and I hope that in her response the Minister will indicate her readiness to engage with noble Lords across the House, and with the EU Select Committee in particular, in developing those ideas.

Trade and Customs Policy

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I will try to calm the waters. I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing the debate to your Lordships’ House. It provides us with a timely opportunity to discuss the hugely important subject of future trade and customs policy.

The real challenge for the Government is in getting all parts of the UK to agree to the terms that the Prime Minister laid out on taking office: no single market and no customs union. Yet the situation of the Irish border demonstrates clearly the complexities of reaching consensus and what appears to me to be the inadequate preparedness of the Government. Yesterday’s news reporting was evidence of the incredible complexity and sensitivity of the discussions.

Members will be aware that the EU Select Committee and its sub-committees have produced a number of related reports over the past year, including Brexit: the Options for Trade, Brexit: Trade in Goods and Brexit: UK-Irish Relations. The reports have taken large amounts of evidence from businesses, academics, trade organisations and Ministers, and they enabled the committees to lay out objectively the opportunities and challenges arising from leaving the EU. However, there were significant warnings that uncertainty and the slow progress being made would undoubtedly start to impact seriously on business investment decisions if the Government failed to ensure that real progress was made with the negotiations.

The results of the referendum are known: some 4% more of the voting British public voted to leave. However, now it is the duty of the Government and the Prime Minister to ensure that we leave with terms that benefit all the people of the UK; that all who live in the UK believe and feel they will not lose out from our exit from the EU; that the UK will maintain a strong relationship with Europe; and that people working here or in Europe will continue to build on the current opportunities we enjoy.

It is hard to understand what a seamless and frictionless border means in the context of the UK-Irish border. I for one certainly struggle with how, in the time remaining, the Government intend to have a bold and ambitious agreement, the freest possible trade and a bespoke arrangement unique to the UK.

The Government must not believe they have the mandate or position to respond with meaningless responses on the important and detailed work that the committees have carried out here and in the other place, hiding behind the so-often used phrase: “We cannot comment on ongoing negotiations”. Our reports lay out clearly and in detail the many issues and challenges that need to be addressed if we are to see our deep and special partnership maintained with our EU partners.

Many of the proposals contained in the Government’s position papers on Brexit are untested and without precedent. It is critical for all of us—from the job and wealth creators to the workforce at large—to believe that real pragmatism and honesty are in place to tackle the mammoth task ahead. It is certainly not in any of our interests for self-serving politicians to get in the way of what is inevitably a massive task of necessary compromises and demands to maintain a strong trading relationship with our biggest trade partner, the EU.

In the Government’s position paper, Preparing for our Future UK Trade Policy, the Government have expressed a desire,

“to ensure continuity in relation to our trade around the world”,

and that we,

“avoid disruption for business and other stakeholders”.

That is a welcome starting point given the scale of the trade that the UK carries out with the EU: the EU accounted for 43.1% of the UK’s exports of goods and services and 53.9% of its imports. Business, the associated supply chains, the associated services and the required skills and people all demand a high level of certainty and consistency.

It is crucial that we understand what a transition period will consist of. We all understand that these are discussions for negotiation, but I will ask my noble friend the Minister specifically about transitional arrangements and the EU’s preferential trade arrangements with third countries. The paper lays out the Government’s commitment to seeking continuity in arrangements for trade with countries,

“covered by EU third country FTAs and other EU preferential arrangements”.

These must be negotiated with the 60-plus countries that are signatories to the EU’s agreements and not with the EU. Will my noble friend confirm that the Government expect to have in place individual transitional deals the day we leave the EU with all countries covered by current EU FTAs, all states party to EU preferential arrangements and the EEA countries and Switzerland, or does she envisage a different scenario? If the latter, could she shed some light on what that would look like?

Will my noble friend say how discussions with Norway and Switzerland are going to ensure that, post Brexit, we avoid a hiatus with two of our largest trading partners outside the EU? Have the UK Government managed to allay the obvious concerns they may have?

The Government have placed huge emphasis on their intention after Brexit to,

“boost our trade relationships with old friends and new allies”.

Will my noble friend tell us how the Government plan to spend the additional £0.1 billion allocated to the Department for International Trade’s resource budget for 2017-18? Are our old friends and new friends expecting significantly different terms on visas and job prospects, given that the Government want tighter immigration levels?

The EU External Affairs Sub-Committee wrote to the Minister of State last week on the new trade remedies regime that my noble friend mentioned in her opening remarks. We all agree and accept that a robust trade remedies framework will be essential if we are to make a success of our new trade policy. Is my noble friend able to tell us what progress has been made on the new framework? I know she said that the Government are working for the best possible framework, but I am sure she can say what she feels are the key objectives for the new trade remedies regime.

I will touch quickly on how the paper relates to the WTO. There have been voices of concern from a number of quarters. The EU Committee also expressed deep concern last year that negotiation of the UK’s schedules of concessions may prove to be less straightforward than the Government have pinned their hopes on. It is of course critical that the views of other WTO members be considered, especially on tariff quotas and on whether the UK’s and the EU’s actions are seen as “modification” rather than “rectification” of the schedules. How confident is my noble friend that, if necessary in the case of a no-deal scenario, the schedules will be agreed in a timely fashion, and how content is she with the pace of the negotiations? What to her mind is a bare-bones deal?

I shall not comment on the White Paper on the customs Bill but focus on the Government’s overall approach to customs after Brexit. As I said in opening, the situation in which the Government find themselves reflects complexities that can be ironed out and agreed on only with a sensible timeframe. In any attempt to rush what are hugely sensitive issues, achieving room for manoeuvre can prove extremely challenging, the Irish border being exactly a point of illustration.

The EU External Affairs Sub-Committee considered in the autumn the Government’s document, Future Customs Arrangements: A Future Partnership Paper. It was extremely disappointing that neither of the two options outlined in the paper was presented with sufficient detail to allow us to examine properly what the “new customs partnership” option would look like, because, in the Government’s own words, it is an “innovative and untested approach”. Surely we are right to feel somewhat apprehensive. Given that we have less than 16 months before we depart from the EU, it is clear that a whole plethora of questions need to be answered on what a customs framework will look like.

My noble friend will be aware that the committee wrote to my noble friend Lord Callanan on 31 October requesting details of the preparatory work that the Government are undertaking before they start negotiations on customs with the EU. I will remind my noble friend of the areas around which the letter was framed: entry and exit declarations; membership of the common transit convention; mutual recognition of the authorised economic operators scheme; a technology solution for ports, and other customs co-operation, assistance and data sharing. The committee has received acknowledgement of the letter from my noble friend, but we are awaiting a response on those issues. Perhaps the Minister can comment on them and assure the House that we will receive a detailed response from the Government on the issues we have raised.

As a former Minister, I am aware of the immense pressures that Ministers are working under. That said, I was and remain of the view that, as servants to the British people, it is critical that we keep our population informed, enabling honest discussions and decisions to be made in the interests of all in our United Kingdom.

One such honest discussion is on the concern raised in our committee’s report, Brexit: Trade in Goods, about the costly administrative procedures for businesses and the varying levels of delay in the consignment of goods, let alone issues raised by our committee and other committees on rules of origin, passporting rights and membership of EU agencies that give us the passage to operate across the globe. Have the Government undertaken an assessment of the cost implications for businesses that they outlined in the future customs arrangements paper? What support in preparedness for these transitions has the business community asked from the Government, and have the Government calculated the scale of financial and time impacts on supply chains and associated providers? The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I met people from a trade association. He has cited one example; I could cite many more.

In our report, Brexit: Trade in Goods, we drew the House’s attention to our concerns about the new customs declaration service, or CDS. We said that we were concerned that the introduction of a new IT system for customs, planned for the year that the UK leaves the EU, may add to the complexity of the trading conditions facing businesses in the face of Brexit. Will my noble friend update the House on the progress of the CDS, both the development and implementing stages? What information programmes will be made available to businesses and how will this work be complemented with our European partners?

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to our committee’s report, Brexit: the Options for Trade, published in December 2016. If the Minister has not read it, I heartily recommend that she and her colleagues do so, as it lays out a number of very well thought-through and doable recommendations and conclusions. I will end on one; it is on page 71, at paragraph 263. The last sentence states:

“We urge the Government to establish at the outset of negotiations a clear ‘game plan’ for a future transitional agreement, with specific proposals as to what form it should take”.


We must not allow ourselves to sleepwalk into chaos. The job of this House and the other place is to provide for all the possible outcomes we could face. The people of the UK expect us to work hard on their behalf, but they also expect honesty and integrity in the debate. We make a difference; let us not find ourselves short in performing our duty.