Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Johnson of Marylebone and Baroness Blower

Committee stage
Thursday 21st November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Barran, raising the issues that arise from the fact that Skills England, for all the hype, is to all intents and purposes the DfE. As others have mentioned, it will not have a statutory basis of its own. It might have a grand name and have been billed heavily in advance by the Government, but it is not a non-departmental public body which would be legally separate from the department and staffed by public servants rather than civil servants; it will be created by simple administrative action rather than legal instrument, meaning that it is basically just the department.

Executive agencies, of which Skills England will be one, are units of central government, perhaps administratively distinct to some extent but remaining legally very much part of it. What does this mean in practice? In some ways, it could be good. Potentially, it means a shorter feedback loop into Ministers’ red boxes, where responsibility for overarching skills policy rightly resides—there will be no room for excuses; the buck will stop with the Secretary of State for Skills England’s performance; and there will be no excuses for any failure of Skills England to work successfully across government departments and to corral Treasury to fund our skills system appropriately. However, that is the upside and, to be honest, I think there is potentially rather more downside from this change, because it is a misdiagnosis of where priorities need to be right now.

A prerequisite for a successful skills system is a reasonable degree of stability and certainty necessary to get businesses to invest in training, and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that our businesses are not investing enough in training their workforce—as we all know, we are spending less than half the OECD average. Instead, we have near-permanent policy churn in this area. Supposedly once-in-a-generation reforms take place nearly every Parliament, sometimes every other year, creating chronic instability in the policy framework for investment for skills.

Now we have a massive machinery of government change with the abolition of IfATE, which was created less than seven years ago. Machinery of government changes are rarely worth the cost, disruption and distraction from other necessary priorities. This really is not what we should be debating right now. Machinery of government changes are no substitute for Ministers driving their teams hard, doing the difficult work of policy development and securing funding for skills from a very sceptical Treasury.

I am worried, therefore, that we are losing focus on the real issues. To my mind, there are two very big areas where I would prefer us all to focus our attention right now. The first is securing clarity from the Government on their plans for the defunding of applied general qualifications. I appreciate that there has been considerable movement from the Government on this matter since they took office in July, but further clarity is still needed on which qualifications that were due to be defunded next year will now be retained and when providers will get that vital information.

The second area I would prefer us to focus on is how we can end the confusion over the future of the lifelong learning entitlement, which has been delayed yet again in recent weeks and now will not start until sometime in 2027, and the provision by the Government of a clear statement as no one knows how the LLE will interact with their planned new growth and skills levy. These are two really important reforms and there is a desperate lack of clarity across our system on how they will work together. I would be very grateful if the Minister could help us with those two issues and take the opportunity to confirm that, in her mind, the LLE will still deliver the skills revolution that the last Government wanted from it and that Skills England will not quietly be asked to kill it off in the months to come.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, in rising to speak very briefly in this debate, I apologise for the fact that I was not at Second Reading. Most of the points that I sought to make have already been made. Therefore, I do not need to repeat them, save that I am sure that there is an absolute commitment in this Room that what we need is high-quality skills training and education and that no one would demur from that. The differences—or possibly the similarities—across the aisle are that we want to make sure that it is done effectively and as speedily as possible while ensuring it is done properly.

I am very sympathetic to the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Knight about the consideration that might be given to a statutory body. Some noble Lords who know my history may know that I have not always been a great fan of everything being held in the hands of the department or the Secretary of State—obviously, it depends on the Secretary of State. In this case, we can afford, if we to make a move, to think about making the appropriate move. From the discussions that I have had, it seems that the appropriate move from where we are would be to a statutory body, for all the reasons that a number of speakers have outlined. That may well confer a greater sense not just of stability but of consistency, which is where we need to be if we are to carry with us young people, their teachers, their parents and employers, who are all extremely concerned, and to ensure that we have excellent skills provision and skills acquisition in this country.