Viscount Camrose

The Industrial Strategy Green Paper is clear that the people that create and work in businesses will be central to the success of the growth-driving sectors and clusters. The government has established Skills England to better understand current and future skills requirements and is developing proposals to ensure the skills system supports employers to develop a pipeline of skilled workers to meet their needs, including in technology and cybersecurity. This will also complement existing skills efforts led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, who oversee the current CyberFirst programme and the work of the UK Cyber Security Council.

Scale-up businesses are a critical part of the UK’s economy, driving innovation and economic growth. The work of the ScaleUp Institute and its partners in continuing to nurture the health of our scale-up ecosystems is as important as ever.

This Government will work closely with the Scaleup Institute and the private sector more broadly to create the right conditions for businesses to scale-up.

Ministers will support the work of the ScaleUp Institute though various mechanisms such as attendance at key events and engaging representatives from their organisation and membership as part of Government policy making.

Cyber criminals are attacking our public services and businesses with increased frequency, costing billions of pounds per year. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will protect more digital businesses than ever, essential services that the public rely on and our national security. The government is committed to minimising additional costs to business and will set out a full assessment of this in an impact assessment, to be published upon introduction of the Bill.

My department is working across government, including working closely with departments who act as cyber sector regulators, to deliver the government’s commitment to reducing the gap in cyber skills. Our assessment of this is set out in the Cyber Security Skills in the UK Labour Market Survey. The priority skillset for the Bill will be the Audit and Assurance specialism, as defined by the UK Cyber Security Council. We have made strides in reducing the gap in these skills this year with a reported fall to 18%, down from 28% in 2023.

Cyber criminals are attacking our public services and businesses with increased frequency, costing billions of pounds per year. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will protect more digital businesses than ever, essential services that the public rely on and our national security. The government is committed to minimising additional costs to business and will set out a full assessment of this in an impact assessment, to be published upon introduction of the Bill.

My department is working across government, including working closely with departments who act as cyber sector regulators, to deliver the government’s commitment to reducing the gap in cyber skills. Our assessment of this is set out in the Cyber Security Skills in the UK Labour Market Survey. The priority skillset for the Bill will be the Audit and Assurance specialism, as defined by the UK Cyber Security Council. We have made strides in reducing the gap in these skills this year with a reported fall to 18%, down from 28% in 2023.

The government is determined to develop the skilled workforce that the UK needs across the whole economy, including in space. That is why it is creating Skills England and will bring forward a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education to break down barriers to opportunity, support the development of a skilled workforce, and drive economic growth through our industrial strategy. Decisions about sector specific workforce action plans will be taken in due course.

As part of the Government’s response to the Nurse Landscape Review, the Department of Science Innovation and Technology and UK Research and Innovation Metascience Unit was established in late 2023 with an initial £10m commitment from Financial Year 2024-25 to support a range of activity from research grants to in-house experiments on UKRI’s processes. The Metascience Unit recently launched their first funding call, with up to £2m co-funding from US-based foundation Open Philanthropy, bringing the total call size to £5m.

The modular acceleration programme is a two-year programme designed to accelerate the supply and support the delivery of individual modules of Higher Technical Qualifications ahead of the launch of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. During academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25, 25 providers will deliver up to 108 modules to learners.

Delivery of the first modules began in April 2024, with the bulk of modules being delivered from September 2024. Activities to raise demand and support recruitment to modules will continue as the programme enters its second academic year.

All departments agreed their Spending Review settlements ahead of Autumn Budget. As you would expect, some technical details took longer to be worked through but the overall numbers were agreed within the expected timeframes. Details of the Settlements were announced by the Chancellor as part of her Budget speech yesterday, and are now available to be viewed online.