Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when you find yourself in a debate with only two minutes to speak, the only thing you can do is dive straight in. The one thing I would say here is, when it comes to training and supporting people in these structures, on-the-job training is not going to work if you have a varied employment structure that moves around the country. Whenever we have devised something of late, we have said: “Let’s go for an apprenticeship or let’s go for work-based training”. It is incredibly difficult for this group to access training in a growing field that has great growth potential.

How do you have an apprenticeship when most of the people doing the job are not going to be working in the same place or under the same contract in six months’ time? It is incredibly difficult to do. The T-level, for which I hope we will get a better structure, has requirements for on-the-job training. When the Minister replies, will he say how we are going to start addressing this? A model that has been terribly fashionable in government circles, across many parties, is becoming increasingly unuseful for training the next generation. We have started to do things such as saying that level 4 training is going to get more support, but if you go into the sectors which are growing it is not going to work. When the Minister replies—or even if he has to write—can he give me some idea of what you do to get support for people doing an apprenticeship, an apprenticeship-type course or a level 3 course if they have varied contracts and the people who are doing it cannot provide that support? It is a question that should have been answered already.