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

Lord Storey Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

I trust that these amendments, together with the information I have provided, have reassured noble Lords of Skills England’s independence and accountability. I beg to move the government amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister makes very strongly the case for skills, in terms of the Government’s agenda for growth, which is something we all support. As a nation, we have been slow on the uptake in realising that we owe it not just to our nation but to our young people in particular to ensure that they have the skills and the opportunities to contribute, including to their own well-being.

At the beginning, people were disappointed when this much-heralded Bill arrived. We all thought it was going to be a skills Bill, as the name on the jar suggested, so we were quite shocked. I think that the best description of the Bill came from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett— I cannot possibly repeat it, so I will leave Members to look at Hansard to see what he said. My view was that if we want to provide what the Government want, we have to be open and flexible. We cannot just leave it all to the department to get it right or wrong. It was very difficult to look at ways to contribute, to be quite honest. You would go to the Legislation Office, which would say, “Oh, this is not in scope; that is not in scope”, so you had to look for mechanisms to actually make a positive contribution and to hopefully make a success of this. My amendment was to say that the Secretary of State should report to Parliament within 12 months of the passage of the Act to address the skills gaps, et cetera. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for reaching out and having a number of conversations about the Bill. I have to say that it is not perfect—we are not in a perfect world—but she did that and I am very grateful to her for it.

Much has been made of the draft framework for Skills England. I ask noble Lords to put their hands up if they have read it from cover to cover—I am sorry; that is teacher mode. Well, I found it quite depressing at times. Let me just read some, on a very minor point. By the way, this wins the “Yes Minister” prize:

“Any disputes between the department and Skills England will be resolved in as timely a manner as possible. The department and Skills England will seek to resolve any disputes through an informal process in the first instance. If this is not possible, then a formal process, overseen by the senior sponsor, will be used to resolve the issue. Failing this, the senior sponsor will ask the relevant policy director-general to oversee the dispute. They may then choose to ask the Permanent Secretary to nominate a non-executive member of the department’s board to review the dispute, mediate with both sides and reach an outcome, in consultation with the Secretary of State”.


My goodness me. If that is how we operate, I really worry about our ability to develop the skills we need.

Joking apart, I think the draft skills document needs to reflect a few other things, which I could not see in it. Perhaps the Minister can reassure me. Wearing my local government hat, I am conscious that our 34 combined authorities have responsibilities in terms of developing skills and have put together skills programmes. I wonder how that will be addressed by the Minister. When she responds, perhaps she can home in on that for me. I will deal with the other issues when we come to them.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I am not sure whether this is an appropriate moment for me to join in but, as I have been mentioned twice this evening, I thought I had better put on record where I stand. First, I thank my noble friend for the substantial consultation and listening exercise, which has already been mentioned on all the Benches opposite. I think we are all extremely grateful that she has been prepared to do that and to reflect those representations, including those made in Committee. Committee was not entertaining, because I do not think the Bill is entertaining in any way, shape or form, but it was thorough. There is nobody taking part tonight, or who took part in Committee or at that very brief Second Reading at about this time of night, who has not got a real commitment, interest and dedication to getting this right. I commend my noble friend because she is totally committed to making this work.

I have not changed my mind: I think this is a mouse of a Bill. We have to elevate Skills England into a lion of an organisation, and I look forward very shortly to the announcement of the substantive chair of Skills England and to the framework document that my noble friend has published in draft becoming a substantive document, taking into account the comments that have been made by Members on all sides this evening. The review that my noble friend referred to will be important and I think that the amendments she has agreed to and moved tonight will make a difference.

I may have said it before, but I am going to say it again: it is not just my dog that has had to get used to being on the other side of the Chamber—the government side. I am adjusting, as well as the dog, to making my way up these Benches. One of the consequences is to cut your own Government a bit of slack and, when they have listened to you, to take that on board and to ride with their assurances. That is what I intend to do tonight, and I ask Members opposite not to push anything to a vote because we need to move on rapidly from this transfer of IfATE.

We need to be very wary that that transfer does not swamp the work of Skills England and its much broader task, as exemplified by the somewhat belated publication of Mark Farmer’s review of construction and engineering and the substantial challenge that it outlines. The Government responded, and I was tickled a bit because it took me back all those years to when the Government declined to comment on or to endorse recommendations that were “not in scope”. Honestly, we have to try to govern in a way that relates to what is happening in the world outside, not by going through the processes that, I am afraid, Ministers are so often presented with. We have a massive challenge in this country to get it right, and we have to use the growth and skills levy—all of it—effectively and in tune with, but not completely run by, the business community, which, frankly, also needs to step up to the mark. If we had the same number of training days that we had 15 years ago then 20 million more training days would be delivered in this country. It is a combined effort between employers, big and small, and those of us, in Parliament and outside, who are committed to making it work, in conjunction with government and now with Skills England.

I hope we can go forward from tonight with the kind of ambition that I know my noble friend and the Secretary of State have to make this work. I am sorry that Skills England is not going to be a statutory body, but it is not make or break and it is not an issue over which I would want the House to divide. I hope, with the review that has been mentioned already, that we will be able to accelerate progress in making this work for the country.

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[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 15, to which I have put my name, and in support of Amendment 9.

Everybody here is agreed that apprenticeship is hugely important for productivity and growth, and in offering young people a valuable and valued route into skilled employment and adult life. When IfATE—it started off as the IfA—was created, it was seen as a major step in the ongoing recreation and revalidation of apprenticeship and was praised as such by all major parties. It was thought that it could be an independent structure with the convening power that is critical to that mission.

I certainly hope that we might be creating something like the BIBB—the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training—which is a wonderful institution that convenes employers, unions, government officials at all levels and researchers, all of whom have an established and major role, and one which everyone in Germany knows about. That did not happen overnight; it was built up over the years. None the less, it has been absolutely critical to the huge role that apprenticeship has played in German life and in the German economy, in its ability to change and develop when economic circumstances change, and, most dramatically, to recreate and revitalise apprenticeship in what was East Germany.

I know that the Government agree about the importance of apprenticeship and that Skills England is designed to support apprenticeship as well as to signal the importance of skills more generally. But there is a cost associated with the reassertion of a habitual and deeply ingrained pattern in this country of constantly reinventing institutions and public and quasi-public bodies, especially in the skills area. It is a real problem because, although skills professionals can just about keep up, most of the people who are actually involved in delivering skills—employers and people on the shop floor, in local government, in colleges and in unions: people who are not professionally engaged in following skills policy—find this very difficult.

Although I hanker after a statutory body, because it has the visibility and the power to convene people in a way that something inside the Department for Education never can, what worries me most is the fact that we have reintroduced instability and uncertainty into the skills world at a time when we are also really aware of the huge importance of developing our skills policy and continuing to grow apprenticeships. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I am very concerned by the fact that we have this drop-off in level 2 and 3 and with young people. So I feel that Amendment 15 offers a clear signal to people about when change is coming, which could be extraordinarily helpful to those who are actually involved in developing, amending and delivering standards, and in planning apprenticeships.

Obviously, I was reassured to hear from the Minister that it was unlikely that IfATE powers would be moved immediately, but I have to say that, although that and the direction that Skills England is going in may be clear to her, out there it really is not clear. People are in a complete fog. They are going, “Yes, I’m sure it’s a great idea. What is it? What is happening?” If it could be made really clear to people that there will be a year’s delay before IfATE powers are transferred, at which point Skills England will be in much better shape, everything will be much clearer, and lots of the other things that have to be done will be done, I think that would be really helpful to everybody concerned.

This is not about having something that you put on the statute book but it never happens—which does occur: quite a major clause in the last piece of skills legislation has never been activated. It is not about that. The transfer of functions will be on the statute book, and it will be very clear that this is going to happen, but it will also be clear to people when it is going to happen, and I think that would be enormously helpful.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

It always concerns me that when new Governments come in, they invariably get rid of particular bodies and create their own. For example, the previous Labour Government set up the regional development agencies, which were hugely successful and built up expertise, et cetera. The coalition Government came in, abolished them and set up a different type of organisation, which took literally years to get going and to be as successful as the regional development agencies.

I do not like the phrase “to delay”; I much prefer “to hand over”. When you hand over, the organisation you are handing over to needs time to embed itself, to understand the situation and to work properly. I am not particularly happy about it, but I will live with Skills England being in the department. We are where we are, and if the Government want to do that, they will.

What is important is that, wherever Skills England is, it is successful and works, because we all want that. It will be successful, to my mind, for three reasons: first, its direction, which the Government set; secondly, who is appointed as chair, and the quality of the board; and—probably—thirdly, the opportunity for the various bodies, be they trade unions, the employers or the combined authorities, to give their information, views and thoughts. To use a strange word, I am quite smitten with this proposal, because it works and helps to enhance the Bill, so I will be interested to hear what the Minister says.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I support both the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness. Lady Barran. I will try to keep my remarks brief about Skills England, the aims of which I think we all support, and which are crucial to the Government’s growth strategy and missions, the industrial strategy and all the things we would like to happen. Above all, it must pull together. The Government have talked about a post-16 education and skills strategy, and I assume that Skills England will be at the heart of that.

In order for that to work, Skills England will need to be co-ordinating skills policies and activities across government departments, because every government department needs skills and has shortages; across regions, local areas and nationally, including the devolved nations; across industry sectors; and across policy priorities. The “state of the nation” was probably the wrong phrase: what I am really looking for is, “What difference have we actually made at Skills England in tackling the very real problems that we all recognise in the skills area?” That will happen only if someone is ensuring consistency and synergy between all the complex elements involved—no doubt with a strong need for consensus-building, if not actual knocking of heads together. This lion needs not just to roar, but to have a few teeth. Whether or not it is a statutory body, it should at least have the right authority and powers, and the right chair and CEO. It is disappointing that we do not know who the chair is going to be, although I know the Minister was hoping to be able to let us know before Report.

The Minister mentioned some of the other executive agencies, and it seems to me that none of those—the Met Office or the DVLA—has the breadth of roles, responsibilities and relationships that this body needs to have. Of course, while it is doing that, it has to undertake the practical functions, transferred from IfATE, of preparing standards and apprenticeship assessment plans. It would help if the Government had some time to concentrate on getting Skills England up to speed in all those areas, so that it can build on its encouraging first report and get on with sorting those things out before the IfATE transfer completely overwhelms its capacity. For those reasons, I support Amendment 15, in particular, and will support the noble Baroness if she decides to push it to a vote.

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Building on that, as the Minister knows, we currently have pan-regional partnerships, which are set up to take that regional view. They do a lot of good work on skills, but there is an ongoing consultation on government proposals to remove funding from those organisations. As I have explained, my concern is that this will leave us without that regional view, which will detract from skills provision and many other areas. I urge the Government to think through the impact of these proposals to remove funding from pan-regional partnerships on skills and on similar areas where a regional view is needed. Also, I urge them to ensure that regional bodies continue in some form and do that knitting together that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, talked about. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I support and echo what the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said, particularly on local and regional skills. It is important that our growth strategy is linked to the skills that we need in that growth and to existing provision.

I was quite worried about the Chancellor’s recent announcement about growth, and it makes my point. It very much centred on the south-east. Merseyside has a thriving pharmaceutical industry, and some of our focus on skills is directed towards that industry. We also have the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which is funded quite considerably by Bill Gates. Suddenly, we hear that AstraZeneca, on which we have an Urgent Question tomorrow, is pulling out because there is insufficient money. The Government need to be sensitive to requirements not just for growth across the whole nation but for how we can use the importance of particular sectors in our regions and localities.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support Amendments 11 and 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and welcome the approach that he has taken. It feels so practical and so grounded in his own experience, with that focus on planning and implementation, as he mentioned. It also highlights the sophisticated choices that need to be made in skills policy between what is needed locally, regionally and nationally. It sounds as though the Minister has already been listening, but I hope that she can give the House further reassurance that she will take these amendments very seriously.