Jobs Market
Debate between Lord Katz and Lord Harrington of Watford
Lord Katz (Lab)
We are working across government to monitor the impact of AI and support job creation, providing skills training for those facing disruption. Just last week, the Technology Secretary announced that every adult in the UK is eligible to take free courses to gain practical AI skills for work, with a target of upskilling about 10 million employees. AI will undoubtedly transform the world of work, but the Government are taking action by establishing the AI and the Future of Work Unit in DSIT to ensure that this transformation boosts productivity and opportunities rather than deepening inequality.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I completely agree with the noble Lord’s assessment about the importance of tackling youth unemployment. Indeed, we have set a bold new target of two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning, whether academic, technical or through an apprenticeship, by age 25. Indeed, as the House heard from my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern earlier, we have a youth guarantee, and we have Alan Milburn leading an investigation into the cause of NEET, and he is working at pace. There will be an interim report in the spring and a report with recommendations in the summer. We are taking this very seriously and we will act on it.
Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I do my best in these questions not to give Ministers—particularly this Minister—a hard time. However, in my capacity as chairman of Make UK, which has 26,000 manufacturing companies, I speak to a lot of employers. They find, first, that in the last year or so, they have been faced with energy costs that are twice as much as those of their competitors in Europe, and despite the Government’s announcement nearly a year ago of a reduction in those energy costs, they have not seen anything happen. Secondly, there has been an increase in national insurance, which is a big payroll tax, and thirdly, there is the bureaucracy and other things that come out of the Employment Rights Act. Given all this, how can the Government expect employers to employ more people?
Lord Katz (Lab)
The noble Lord has raised a number of factors there, and I do not want to take up too much time in the House going through them one by one. For example, I have already talked about the Employment Rights Act and how that is about benefiting millions of employees. Also, to be absolutely clear, we are taking active measures on energy costs. We are working with Sir Charlie Mayfield to ensure that when people get work, they stay in work, and lots of employers are working with him. He is working with over 120 businesses, which employ 5 million workers, as part of the vanguard phase of his plan to ensure that we do not just get people working but keep them working. I understand the challenges that this Government face in fixing the mess that the previous Government made over the previous 14 years, but we cannot undo 14 years of damage in merely 18 months.