Education and Skills Reform

Debate between Baroness Smith of Malvern and Lord Whitty

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, while I welcome many of the aspects of this Statement and much of what my noble friend the Minister said, I still feel that it lacks an overall strategy in relation to future changes of demands on the employment and skills markets. In particular, will the Government produce a strategy which is central to their economic policy and deals with the impact that AI will have on the employment and skills requirements in the medium term? One does not have to be a total pessimist and say that AI is going to destroy millions of jobs, but it will change millions of them dramatically, not least entry-level jobs. Will there be a strategy from the department for dealing with AI and its impact on the needs of our education and skills system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is precisely in order to equip children to respond to the changing needs in the labour market that we are making some of these changes, but those build, of course, on the introduction by this Government of Skills England. I hope that my noble friend will have seen some of the important work that Skills England has done on the way in which AI skills will be necessary for the future workforce, and how they are likely to change the nature of the skills that young people and, in fact, adults need. The Government have responded to that through additional skills training to support not just young people but people throughout their lives to develop those AI skills. I agree that this is a wide-ranging challenge to both the labour market and our education system and that more work needs to be done, but we have certainly made an important start.