Economy

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister is hesitant to address this because it was a very strong manifesto commitment and he is very anxious not to break those. As we know, in politics it is very easy to break promises.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, the Statement claims that new investment is being provided in training and apprenticeships. Can the Minister elaborate on what is new rather than already announced? Can he tell the House whether the Government will ensure that workers on reduced hours have real opportunities to use the time they have to develop much-needed additional skills? What conditions will be required from employers to fulfil that need?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, the announcements last week included a number of matters around the extension of existing loan facilities and keeping open the window for loan applications under the various support schemes that the Treasury has created. On encouraging part-time working to enable staff to use the spare time for training, I think that that has to be an individual matter between employees and employers. However, to me it seems fairly straightforward that a part-time employee can access, in particular, online training, which has become the method by which most training is now distributed.