Lord Haskel

The Business Plan and Capital Application for the National College were submitted to the Department on 16 July. The proposals provide an estimate of the operating costs of the college and potential income sources. As an independent body, the college will be responsible for all decisions about the operations of the college and how these costs will be met. Employers will be expected to contribute towards these costs through investment in training and the provision of equipment.

According to the World Health Organisation, the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package, including paper package, that has been moved, travelled, and exposed to different conditions and temperate is also low.

The Government has endorsed the conclusions reached in the Law Commission’s report Electronic Execution of Documents that the existing legal framework in England and Wales makes clear that businesses and individuals can feel confident in using e-signatures in commercial transactions.

The Government believes that digitalisation of industry has the potential to achieve great benefits for the labour market, which can offset the impact of job displacement. Extensive research conducted for the review found that industrial digitalisation can result in a net gain of 175,000 jobs. However, government recognises that there will be challenges of job displacement in the short term and has already made preparations to mitigate this (see below).

We are working closely with industry and experts to consider its findings.

Examples of specific action government is taking now to upskill the current workforce and future workforce include:

• Digital skills Partnership (currently in development), which sets out a high level proposal for some type of partnership to bring together private and public sector organisations to actively tackle the digital skills gap.
• As indicated in the Digital Economy Act (April 2017), the Government will introduce an entitlement for adults who lack basic digital skills to undertake fully-funded training as part of the publicly-funded adult education offer.
• A £10m fund for the Future Digital Inclusion project supports approximately 5,000 businesses and centres targeting those who are deprived and most likely to need support to deliver basic digital skills to adults in England.
• Career/Lifelong learning - The Spring Budget 2017 announced spending of up to £40m by 2018-19 to test different ambitious new approaches to tackle the barriers to lifelong learning.
• Cyber Apprenticeships – working with employers to help develop cyber security apprenticeships to help address the cyber skills gap in critical sectors, including Energy, Transport, Water, Telecoms and Broadcasting Media.

The Apprenticeship Levy is a key part of the Government’s reforms to the apprenticeship system. It enables employers to make a long-term and sustainable investment in high-quality apprenticeship training.

The Government recognises that employers have frustrations with the way that these Apprenticeship Levy funds can be spent within the apprenticeships system and is delivering a suite of improvements to address these. These include the improvements announced at Spending Review 2021, such as introducing an enhanced recruitment service for SMEs, supporting the use of flexible training models, and introducing a return-on-investment tool to ensure employers can see the benefits that apprentices create in their business.

The Government’s ambition is to encourage greater levels of private sector investment in employee training, both for apprentices and for employees more generally. Therefore, at Spring Statement 2022, the Chancellor announced that he would consider whether further intervention is needed to encourage employers to offer the high-quality training the UK needs. This will include examining whether the current tax system – including the operation of the Apprenticeship Levy – is doing enough to incentivise businesses to invest in the right kinds of training.

While there will not be a formal review of the Apprenticeship Levy as part of this wider consideration on employer investment in training, the Government is committed to protecting the quality of apprenticeship training and further improving the system to respond to the concerns raised by employers.