Vocational Education and Training

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the gap to make a short comment from my own perspective as chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and, as a result, a member of the NP11, which was a sponsor of the Convention of the North held in Rotherham a few weeks ago. Some noble Lords may remember that, in his contribution to that convention, the Prime Minister raised the question of devolving certain aspects of policy development and implementation to the regions.

As all the speakers have said, skills are very important. They matter for the prosperity of parts of Britain—and I speak from Cumbria, which has a poor record on productivity although that is partly to do with the actual metrics deployed. But equally important, they matter to the development of the people who live in this country and enabling them to have worthwhile and fulfilled lives.

What is clear from this debate is that the relationship between schools, training, further and higher education, charities and the needs of employers is multifaceted and can be calibrated in variety of ways. It is part of the role of LEPs to drive the skills agenda forward. In response to the policy enunciated in Rotherham by the Prime Minister, I call on the Government in delivering this devolved approach to ensure, first, that it is genuinely devolved and secondly that it gives those on the ground a proper degree of discretion because there are horses for courses and different things pertain in different places. That will enable us most effectively, within the essential criteria of safeguarding and standards, to deliver what central government wants us to do.