Skills: Importance for the UK Economy and Quality of Life

Lord Mountevans Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Aberdare on securing this very important debate. He has undoubtedly touched a particular vein here in the House, with tremendous engagement from all participants. I also congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Hale and Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, on their excellent maiden speeches.

The much-vaunted UK knowledge economy masks an inherent imbalance with, and under-celebration of, our skills economy. “Education, education, education” has enabled our universities to blossom—perhaps at the expense of our colleges. For several decades, we have hollowed out and failed to invest adequately in our skills infrastructure. This has been further compounded by the aspiration for a degree, with all the supposed hierarchical status it promises.

It is regrettable that it has taken significant skills gaps and chronic skills shortages to deliver the wake-up call to UK plc of the pivotal importance of skills. We must go well beyond the virtue signalling of apprenticeships. Government policy has placed great importance on front-skilling the school pupils while neglecting their older siblings’ and parents’ needs for upskilling and reskilling. We are failing to value and appropriately fund the technical skills, the digital skills, the future skills, the green skills—as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman—and even skills foresighting. At the centre of everything, we need bold leadership and sustained political attention, kept honest by a strong voice from industry and a joint commitment to long-term investment.

I will speak on apprenticeships, on the colleges on which we rely for so much of skills training and, finally, if time permits, on the experience in my own maritime industry. Apprenticeships are a vital part of investing in individuals to deliver better skills outcomes for the wider economy. My understanding is that over 250,000 apprenticeships are commenced per year. This is not enough and, as we have heard, it does not adequately address the vital SME need. Figures from the OBR indicate that receipts by government for the apprenticeship levy will reach close to £4 billion in 2024-25, while the apprenticeship budget stands at £2.7 billion. Is the balance going to a good end in training or education?

We know there has been a significant increase in the number of young NEETs. Something must be done for this group. Yet apprenticeships remain the only part of the education sector where 16 to 18 year-olds are not fully funded by the state. Can this be addressed in any way? There needs to be a joined-up approach to apprenticeship across government, with direct ministerial oversight.

Now I turn to colleges, on which we depend so heavily for training away from work. For the colleges, this is a particularly challenging time. We rely on them to tackle the chronic and acute skills shortages, particularly among struggling SMEs and those sectors blighted by Brexit and the pandemic. If I may paraphrase the words of a friend, Dr Paul Little, principal of the renowned Glasgow College, I fear we are sleepwalking into a vocationally light future with an underpowered skills system and an underinvested skills infrastructure.

On the maritime experience, we are in fact very fortunate with the training options in maritime. We have heard a lot of quite depressing statistics one way and another today, and areas of great concern, but I think this is a success story, and credit goes to the Government for that. A number of universities are offering excellent degree courses and some professional organisations are offering specific professional qualifications in significant shore-based specialisations such as law, insurance and ship-broking.

There is time to concentrate only on seafarer training. We are indeed fortunate that seafarer training has operated essentially on a global basis through the supranational regulator, the International Maritime Organization, which is based across and up the river, and the UK’s national Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Our UK maritime sector is blessed in having a close tripartite relationship between the ship owners, the educators and workforce representatives, convened for almost a century by the UK Merchant Navy Training Board. This is borne out of inherent concern for seafarers’ safety, both coastal and deep sea, placing a higher value on competency and proficiency than on merely gaining a qualification.

I should add that the SMarT funding arrangement has been a great success for the training of seafarers, with 50% of the cost paid by government. This scheme supports seafarers’ training while ensuring a flow of very well-qualified seafarers—when they come ashore—into the maritime professional services, where Britain is the global industry leader. We are also fortunate in having a Maritime Skills Commission and blessed to have four seafarer education and training colleges, located in Glasgow, Warsash in Southampton, South Tyneside and Lowestoft. The skills and training acquired in these colleges are still recognised as the gold standard for maritime skills worldwide, and long may this last.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, noted the strong contribution of the City of London Corporation, City & Guilds and the livery companies to education and training. It is interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, is a fellow liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, which makes an outstanding contribution to education and training. When I was elected to the City of London Corporation, I served on a number of school boards. I quickly realised that one area of great importance is aspiration. The City’s colleges and schools have succeeded in imbuing and developing aspiration in staff and students. I do not believe that any of us has mentioned aspiration, but it is vital for teachers and their students alike. I could wish to associate myself with very many speakers, but I do so with what the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said about the value of foreign language teaching.