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

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I shall also probe whether Clauses 2 and 3 and Schedules 1 to 3 should stand part of the Bill.

At Second Reading, we heard about the importance of skills development to boost economic growth, the gaps that employers face in finding the skills they need to fill vacancies, the continuing complexity of the skills landscape, and the ambition of the Government to meet these challenges. At this point, I thank particularly the Learning and Work Institute and the Association of Colleges for their advice and their perspectives on the Bill. On these Benches, while we accept that the Government have a real commitment to address these issues, we also believe that they need to give Parliament and employers much greater clarity on their plans. The Bill is clear in the door that it closes—the abolition of IfATE—but is silent on the door it opens; that is, Skills England and its powers and accountability. We are left with an interregnum, with the Secretary of State holding all the powers of IfATE and a few more for good measure.

I will try also to explain the logic of my Amendments 32 and 33. Ideally, we would have liked to be debating a much clearer, more detailed Bill and have all the answers to the concerns expressed across the House at Second Reading. I note that in her closing remarks at Second Reading, the Minister committed to setting out the relationship between the Department for Education and Skills England in a publicly available format which will be updated periodically. Even the phrase “updated periodically” begs questions about the clarity and stability of roles and accountability. No doubt the Minister will give us further details on this today.

My amendments suggest solutions on a sliding scale. At one end, we are proposing to stick with the status quo through the stand part notices for Clauses 1 to 3 and the associated schedules; from there, to different degrees of independence and accountability for a new body called Skills England; to, finally, although not in this group of amendments, accepting the Government’s proposals, but with a clear and rigorous reporting requirement to Parliament. At this stage, these are probing amendments.

As we heard at Second Reading, there are genuine concerns about the transfer of IfATE’s powers to the Secretary of State, in terms of compromising the independence with which apprenticeships and wider technical qualifications, including T-levels, are accredited, and in diluting the voice of employers. These concerns are only amplified by later clauses which extend the powers of the Secretary of State beyond those of IfATE to prepare standards without employer input, and remove requirements for regular reviews of technical qualifications and third-party examination of standards. We will, of course, debate these points later in Committee.

The proposed creation of Skills England as an executive agency within the Department for Education, rather than as an independent statutory body, although not part of the Bill, has raised questions about both its autonomy and its effectiveness. More broadly, our stand part notices seek to elicit from the Minister explanations on the following points.

First, why does the Minister believe that this organisational change will be any more effective than the previous 12 changes in the past 50 years?

Secondly, the impact assessment set out that the Government had considered both keeping IfATE as an organisation separate from Skills England and expanding its powers to take on Skills England’s full set of powers. My Amendment 32 attempts to reintroduce this as an option for the Government to consider. It would create an executive agency of the department, which would be called Skills England, and would focus on wider skills strategy, as well as keeping IfATE as an independent body for the accreditation of technical education qualifications and for its other responsibilities.

That amendment has a lot in common with Amendment 21 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, although Amendment 21 would not retain IfATE, as mine would. One can make the case that it is more coherent to have everything in one place, but one can also argue that Skills England has a huge brief and should focus on some of the more urgent priorities, leaving IfATE to continue its good work in setting up clear lines of communication.

It is hard to avoid the conclusions that the Government are knowingly diluting the voices of employers; that they want to have as much control as possible over these qualifications in future; and, importantly, that they are seeking to reorganise the structures to deliver skills reforms rather than getting on with “doing the doing”, which is much needed on the ground. The impact assessment sets out briefly the advantages of the Government’s chosen approach but says almost nothing about the drawbacks of losing an independent, employer-led organisation that the Government acknowledge does an excellent job. It would be most helpful if the Minister could explain in more detail the barriers to doing this and how His Majesty’s Government evaluated the shortcomings of this approach.

Moving along the sliding scale, I turn to Amendment 33, which aims to commit the Government to introducing a draft Bill that would create an independent arm’s-length body, to be called Skills England. I note that organisations such as the St Martin’s Group, which represents employers, training providers and awarding organisations, have been clear in their briefings that it is

“crucial that Skills England’s independence needs to be exerted in statute”.

Given the independence that this would create from the department, we have assumed that IfATE would no longer need to exist. I hope very much that this is something to which the Minister can respond positively.

In my Amendments 32 and 33, we stipulate that the chief executive of Skills England must report to the board of Skills England. It seems extraordinary to have to make this point but noble Lords may have noticed that the job description for the CEO of Skills England made no reference to the board; rather, they report to the relevant director-general in the department. Given the emphasis that the Minister put at Second Reading on the strength and operational independence of the Skills England board and its members, it seems a major drawback that the chief executive of the organisation, on whose board they sit, does not report to it. Could the Minister undertake to reconsider this?

Finally, I turn to my Amendment 42, which I tabled, as the French might say, “pour encourager”. I am hopeful that the Minister will take my other amendment seriously as a way of actively demonstrating her commitment to the independence of Skills England but, failing that, this amendment seeks to sunset this legislation and give the Government time to come back with a Bill that addresses the concerns that we heard at Second Reading—and that we will no doubt hear more of in Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I consider myself encouragée. We on these Benches have some sympathy with these wrecking amendments. We have never supported taking decision-making out of the hands of experts and into the hands of a Secretary of State, whoever he or she may be and however informed and enthusiastic he or she may be about colleges, further education, and technical and vocational qualifications. As I said at Second Reading—I do not apologise for repeating it—politicians are almost always university-educated and may have little understanding of or enthusiasm for the world of skills. I exempt our Minister from this because I know that she cares but, of course, there is no guarantee that she will not be replaced—not for some time, I hope—by a “here today, gone tomorrow” Minister with no knowledge of this sector. These posts do not last, as we all know.

I speak with some knowledge. In the coalition Government, I was appointed Minister for the Olympics and Sport, having never had any interest in sport in my life. At school, I was a fat little bespectacled nerd who was always chosen last for any team. But, given the portfolio, I spent days and weeks of my life learning all there was to know about rugby league—thanks to my noble friend Lord Addington—cricket, hockey and other unmentionables in order to give educated answers to questions. But that is not the same as having a lifelong enthusiasm, and, because Ministers have almost always been educated—surprisingly enough—and can display an astonishing academic superiority, they may look down on practical achievement, as I discovered when I worked in Michael Gove’s team.

We are disappointed, as we always thought of Labour as a party supportive of education in all its guises, yet it has brought forward the damaging VAT on independent schools Bill, which would make us the first country in the world, I believe, to tax education—shame on them—and now this damaging Bill to attack practical education. It is a sad day indeed. We are also bemused that this apparently is the skills Bill, yet there is no mention of skills in it. It might as well have been the flying fish Bill because there is no mention of flying fish either. Some of the amendments in this group try to remedy this, including Amendments 32 and 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which we broadly support.

I will speak to Amendment 21 in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, who much regrets that he cannot be here today, to which I added my name. We are spelling out what is missing from the Bill—namely, the establishment of a new executive agency to be called Skills England. Our amendment sets out the conditions for Skills England to be established and the need for both Houses to agree proposals. Other, linked amendments have been regrouped for some reason—I had some work today to try to work out where the groupings have changed since yesterday; I am not quite sure why they were—but we still have the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which seeks to keep some of the duties of IfATE alongside the new body. As IfATE contains many real experts and champions, we feel this is a sensible move and we support it.

We have very strong objections to the power grab by politicians over the experts who really care. We will seek to change this and to convince the Government of the harm that could be done to enhancing the much-needed skills of the country if this goes through unamended. I hope that our listening Minister will appreciate how much is at stake in the Bill and will take note of the very well-intentioned and well-informed amendments that have been tabled.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by reminding the Committee of my educational interests, in particular that I serve on Pearson’s qualification committee, which includes its oversight of BTEC and other technical and T-level qualifications. I apologise that I was not present at Second Reading, but I had to be elsewhere. I have a number of noble friends who would have liked to have been here today but unfortunately are unable to be, particularly my noble friends Lord Blunkett, Lord Watson and Lady Morris.

I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, with all the considerable respect that I afford her and was reminded of the ill-fated Schools Bill. She is playing the same game that some of us played at her, with the stand part notices and trying to wipe clauses out, which we did successfully in the case of the Schools Bill. It is interesting to reflect on that, because there are a few lessons that the department perhaps needs to learn about introducing controversial Bills in the Lords. There is controversy, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, who spoke more fruitily than I might have expected.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

I am sorry.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

Well, not fruity—more forthrightly than I would have expected. Is that better? There is some reflection to be had on that because if a House of Lords starter gets significantly amended, it is difficult to undo that anywhere else.

I also think some learning from the Schools Bill is necessary in respect of the Secretary of State taking on significant powers without really consulting or properly engaging and not having time to do that. In the case of the Schools Bill it was a trio of ex-Ministers—the noble Lords, Lord Nash, Lord Agnew and Lord Baker—who did for it. We do not have a trio of ex-Ministers trying to do for this Bill, so I hope that is a relief to my noble friend the Minister.

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Perhaps I could write to my noble friend with more details on that point. Currently, IfATE controls the licensing of T-levels, which is awarded to awarding organisations for them to develop and deliver. IfATE is not an awarding organisation but the contractor; that responsibility will transfer to the Secretary of State. It is the certification of T-levels that is delivered by the department. As I say, I will respond to my noble friend with a bit more detail on T-levels.

I was attempting to provide noble Lords with some assurance about the governance of Skills England through its framework agreement. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about internal governance, Skills England will be run by a permanent CEO within a clear governance and accountability framework, and with a robust management structure at all levels. The CEO will be supported and challenged by an independent chair and a strong board with the experience and knowledge to support Skills England’s delivery. Once appointed, the chair and the board will help set the direction of the organisation, establish key relationships and provide important expertise on matters related to Skills England’s strategic aims and core functions. We are currently recruiting for these positions; we have received a large volume of very high-quality applications. In the meantime, I put on record my gratitude for the work of Richard Pennycook, who has been working as the interim chair of Skills England to support the creation of the new body.

I understand the noble Baroness’s specific point in relation to the governance and the reporting arrangements of the CEO, and I accept her point about the reporting arrangements and the role of the board. Perhaps I could come back to her with more clarity on her point about the advert for the CEO and where we see that accountability going.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

I apologise to the Minister but can she explain something? We are all talking about Skills England but there is no mention of it in this Bill. Can she explain why that is?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is because, as with all executive agencies, the process for setting up Skills England as an executive agency does not require legislation, but for it to hold the functions that enable it to operate in the coherent manner I described, the functions currently held by IfATE need to be transferred to and delivered by Skills England as an executive agency of the DfE. It is the route through the Secretary of State that enables that to happen. I reiterate my earlier point: Skills England might not appear in the legislation in this place, but it very much appears on the country’s skills landscape. Notwithstanding the significance of the scrutiny that this place is able to give, as well as the concerns about Skills England’s longevity, that is probably more important than whether it is in a Bill.

The passage of the Bill provides an opportunity for both Houses—as we are doing today, in fact—to consider the approach we are proposing, which is to move away from the current, narrow IfATE model. Creating any further requirement for parliamentary approval before Skills England operates fully would frustrate the intentions of the Bill to enable a smooth transfer and the delegation of functions to Skills England; the efficient and orderly closure of IfATE; and the ongoing work in the service of employers and learners. I assure noble Lords that the practical transition of functions will be designed to ensure that, where standards or apprenticeship assessment plans are in the process of preparation or approval at the point of transition, these will continue. Similarly, approval decisions for technical qualifications that are part-way through the process will also continue. It is our intention that employers and other stakeholders perceive no interruption in that work.

The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, asked about the progress on the review of level 3 qualifications. Briefly, let me say that we will, as I have said all along, make public our decisions on the review of those qualifications; they are due to be defunded in 2025, before Christmas.

I have talked in the House about this Government’s commitment to the lifelong learning entitlement. We will now be introducing it for courses starting from January 2027, precisely to ensure that it has the impact that the noble Lord rightly identified that it can have for lifelong learning.

I hope I have set out the intentions behind Clauses 1 to 3. For these reasons and those that I outlined on the remaining amendments, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will not press her stand part notices and amendments.

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[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 6, to which I have added my name. The great thing about following so many intelligent noble Lords is that I have little to say. In particular, my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith talked about the employer, which is important for everybody. I have been playing bingo with words and phrases and “clarity” has come up many times. With due deference to my noble friend Lord Aberdare, I am going to repeat myself: we need clarity; employers need clarity; teachers need clarity. This is my second bite at the cherry and I am not sure whether I declared my interest as a teacher at first. Everybody needs clarity from the Bill and these amendments give more rather than less, which is vital.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, with us, because his voice has enormous stature in these discussions. These amendments are all to do with the creation of standards. My noble friend Lord Storey added his name to Amendments 2 and 6, but we are broadly supportive of all the amendments in this group. It is vital that in any work-based qualification the voice of employers is heard loud and clear. I should perhaps have declared that I worked for 20 years for City & Guilds on what we always called “vocational qualifications”, because while some were technical, some were craft qualifications. I always regretted the fact that we had taken over the word “technical” to cover all those myriad work areas.

Of course, employers may not be expert in teaching or assessment, as we discovered in spades when we were developing national vocational qualifications. Employers had wonderful, grandiose ideas about all the things that they wanted to assess, but when we got the colleges and City & Guilds with them, they realised that if they wanted staff to know about fire, they could not actually create a fire for every member of staff to have a real experience of dealing with fire. Assessment bodies had their place, as well as the colleges.

I was working for City & Guilds when the first national vocational qualifications were established. NVQs were going to revolutionise the “skills” word with a very easy to understand grading, which would have enabled parents, teachers and everybody to understand exactly where the vocational system was in relation to the academic one. Alas, where are they now? Why do we have local skills improvement plans and partnerships if they are not to be used for all the skills they have in this brave new world? I think it is important that the Secretary of State must set the priorities for LSIPs and review them regularly to ensure that their priorities are reflected in national strategies for the creation of standards, so I think this set of amendments has a great deal to commend it.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I welcome the fact that my noble friend Lord Blunkett has both attended and made his usual well-informed and passionate contribution in this debate. It appears that very little in the way of ill health or accident will prevent him from making his contribution. We all hope that he recovers as soon as possible. He rightly made an argument about the centrality of skills for everything that the Government are trying to achieve. He is exactly right about the role of skills in delivering all the missions that this Government have set out: growth, opportunity for individuals, rebuilding the NHS, delivering a green superpower, providing opportunities for young people as part of the contribution to keeping our streets safer, and building new homes. I completely agree with him about that and I hope that his words will help our efforts with the Treasury in the way he identified to ensure that that is recognised there as well.

The debate on this set of amendments has been interesting. I will talk about the relatively narrow nature of Clause 4 in a moment, but noble Lords have understandably also taken the opportunity to argue for the significance of a broad range of inputs into the activity of Skills England. I agree with the overarching argument about the importance of the involvement of a wide-ranging set of stakeholders. That is how Skills England has already set off in its work. It has already begun to engage with a wide range of employer representative bodies, individual employers and education and training providers. As I said, it will work closely across government and, in working on the industrial strategy, it will work in partnership with business, devolved Governments, regions and other stakeholders in developing the industrial strategy sector plans.

As my noble friend Lord Blunkett emphasised, there needs to be a sectoral approach to the way we develop skills across the economy. That has been an early focus for Skills England. It will work with employer representative bodies and directly with employers. It will work with education and training providers and with mayoral combined authorities. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I had a good meeting just last week with mayoral combined authorities on skills, and Skills England has been meeting regularly with them. On the point raised by my noble friend Lady Blower, one of the important elements of Skills England has been the engagement of unions, in a way that was not the case previously in the development of the skills landscape. I hope that I can give noble Lords some assurance that that is already the approach that Skills England is taking.

Narrowing the discussion down more specifically to the nature of the intention behind Clause 4, I make it clear that this is to provide the Secretary of State with greater flexibility in the minority of circumstances where preparing occupational standards using a group would be disproportionate or unnecessary for the limited scale or nature of the change or where the system needs to move particularly quickly to respond to employer demand. With over 700 standards currently in place, this clause ensures that the system for preparing and reviewing standards is fit for the future.

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[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to this stand part notice. My original thought was to table an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to publish regular reports detailing which technical education qualifications or standards and assessment plans had been approved without any review and why such review was deemed unnecessary. I was also concerned that the clause, as it stands, would seem to make it possible for no review at all to be conducted. The clause stand part notice in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is more straightforward: it removes the clause altogether. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what exactly the Government’s intentions are for carrying out reviews and why these should not be spelled out in the Bill.

Similarly, although no amendment has been tabled, Clause 7 would make it possible for no third-party examination of a standard or apprenticeship assessment plan to be undertaken at all. Again, I hope that the Minister will tell us what the Government mean to do about such independent examinations. It has been suggested to me that they might be even more valuable sometime after a standard or a plan has been approved and put into practice, rather than before the approval, when it is not known what the effect will be.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, there is no mention of awarding bodies in the Bill but, when I worked for City & Guilds, it was part of our role to review qualifications at regular intervals. I wonder why that does not feature anywhere in the Bill and why the Secretary of State is apparently taking over a function that was done very effectively in those days by awarding bodies.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I was delighted to add my name to the Clause 6 stand part notice in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Like him and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I am baffled about why the Government do not want to review the approvals of technical education qualifications, published standards and assessment plans at regular intervals. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, intimated, it seems that the closer one is to the department and any Secretary of State, the more one will need independent scrutiny to retain the confidence of employers, learners and providers. Obviously, there is a risk that, without that independent oversight, standards of technical qualifications could be eroded or become less relevant than they should be.

Does the Minister agree that Clause 6 potentially introduces conflicts of interest? By removing the requirement for independent oversight, are the Government not placing an undue burden on those directly involved in the design and delivery of standards to act as their own assessors, where they end up marking their own homework? It would be helpful if the Minister could explain to the Committee why the Government do not believe that this level of scrutiny is needed. I absolutely appreciate that, in some areas, the review might be very light-touch—for example, because of the suitability of a set of qualifications—but we have seen how qualifications rise and fall in popularity and relevance over time. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords this afternoon, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, there are clear calls from the sector for greater simplification of qualifications.

At Second Reading, the Minister committed to publishing information about the intervals for reviews of different qualifications. I wonder whether she could update the Committee on when that will happen.

Similarly, my Amendment 16 to Clause 7 seeks just to restore the status quo; namely, that the Secretary of State “must”, rather than “may”, make arrangements for an independent third party to carry out an examination of a standard or an apprenticeship assessment plan. As the Committee knows, independent reviews are there to provide feedback to policymakers and training providers by, for example, identifying areas for improvement and best practice. I very much hope that the Minister will consider this amendment and stand part notice positively.

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[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge that a great deal of the thinking behind Amendment 17 comes from the Edge Foundation. Skills England is a big change and a big opportunity. The Government’s ambitions to unify the skills landscape and respond to the skills need, which is very large and well acknowledged, will require impetus, which Skills England seems to have, but also connection—connection which allows competing interests, particularly between departments, to be resolved and common pathways to be evolved.

It does not seem to me that we can run a skills system by diktat. There is nothing about any department, except the Treasury, that allows it to impose diktat on others. My amendment suggests to the Government that they look at the success of the chief scientific adviser structure. Obviously, there would be the chief skills adviser in the DfE, but skills advisers should be in each department, as with the chief scientific adviser network. It is about evolving a combined understanding and having someone in each department for whom skills is their principal occupation, who has status in that department and who is intimately connected into the Department for Education’s network.

Every department has skills needs and its own understanding and ideas about them. Fragmentation impedes employer and provider engagement. Anyway, modern life needs cross-cutting skills and a lot of jobs require skills whose roots are in several departments, and these things need to work together. The Government’s missions are very much dependent on effective collaboration on skills.

Looking at the individual departments, we see that even within the DfE skills cross schools, FE and, notably, higher education. There is plenty of need for communication just within the one department. Having a chief skills adviser would help.

In other departments, one wishes that the Treasury would import some people who understand the real world a bit better, but it is also responsible for the evolution of skills in the financial and accounting space. Those are the kind of skills that spread into a lot of other careers.

The Foreign Office handles languages, history, geography and diplomacy. Diplomacy is not something that social media seem to cultivate; the Foreign Office must care where that skill is coming from.

The Home Office covers police and security but, above all, migration—bringing in the skills we have not generated here. I remember plenty of conflict with the Home Office in my 30 years here on whether particular skills would be allowed into this country and the speed at which that should be done.

The Department for Business and Trade obviously covers management and skills for business, but a huge skills effort is actively under way there under the heading of the industrial strategy. The people and skills division is trying to solve underinvestment in skills by industry and to improve management and tech use skills. A huge agenda is being actively pursued there, not as a subsidiary of the DfE but as a subsidiary of the industrial strategy.

The Department of Health and Social Care is a huge user of skills and a very big user of microcredentials. Really small bits of learning have evolved to be accepted by the particular employers at which they are aimed. When you have a bigger employer such as the Department of Health, that is really quite easy. So these skills qualifications are evolving in large numbers and at great speed not only in Health but in a lot of other departments.

DESNZ needs the green workforce, the MHCLG has construction and especially housing, DSIT uses the sciences, DCMS has creative skills, and the Cabinet Office needs skills for the Civil Service. If productivity is slipping back in the Civil Service, there is clearly a need for big skills investment. The MoJ needs legal skills and the Department for Work and Pensions is concerned with access to skills. What qualifications are available for people who are bottom of the heap when it comes to employment? The MoD has a huge range and depth of training, the DfT has skills from lorry driving to logistics, and Defra uses environmental skills.

Local government, through the LSIP network, has a real interest in how the skills agenda is delivered. The word I hear is that LSIPs have been a real success, as they are effective and flexible. It takes a couple of years for the DfE to evolve a qualification but LSIPs can do it in weeks, because they are so focused on the actual local employer need and work closely with a provider. The Minister for Women and Equalities brief is now in the DfE but it used to wander around Whitehall. It has a very strong interest in the skills agenda.

Every department in Whitehall is intimately linked to the skills agenda and needs to be bound to a common sense of progress. It is not possible to do that by pushing; it has to be by linking. A structure like that of the chief scientific advisers would help, and the DfE has experience of this. It has its own chief scientific adviser and a council of scientific advisers to go with it. This is a resource that the DfE is used to having.

By having a chief skills adviser network to feed into and get feedback from, the Government and the DfE will know and understand the skills challenges of all departments so that they can synthesise and co-ordinate. Individual departments would have immediate access to the DfE resource, so that they can plan and integrate. That would be a good way forward for a skills structure.

I would be very grateful if the Minister replied to the questions I asked at the end of my previous intervention. I have seen too many sets of relationships die when institutions change. Some of the sector skills councils had really good relationships with business and they were just trashed. Most relationships with local enterprise partnerships just ended; they went nowhere, because local authorities were not capable of maintaining them in the same way. I want to be sure that what IfATE has built will continue under the new arrangements. As I said, I would also be interested in how the Careers & Enterprise Company fits into this structure. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on the importance of a chief skills adviser. As I have said before, skills always need advocates within government because it has a predominantly university-educated membership. This role could be key to ensuring that skills changes will be enacted by someone who can take a view over the country of which skills are in short supply in which areas and need local support. The network of skills advisers in all departments that the noble Lord proposes would be a great way forward, and I support the amendment.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly. I think that this amendment is worth very serious consideration. When I was Science Minister, I saw up close—as the whole country did during the pandemic—the value of the Chief Scientific Adviser and the network of scientific advisers across government departments. They play a really useful role in ensuring that policy is informed by the strongest possible understanding of science and in bringing the scientific method to policy-making. They have had a huge impact and made a huge contribution.

However, I would just flag that this raises an interesting question about what exactly the role of Skills England is. My understanding, from what the Government have said so far about Skills England, is that it was meant to be a body working across government and doing the difficult job of ensuring that all the different interests of different government departments in the skills agenda are given appropriate balance and focus. To my mind, that may be somewhat duplicative of what Skills England is itself seeking to do. In that sense, it may be a perfectly good alternative to Skills England if you have a chief skills adviser, informed by skills advisers in the various departments, feeding into the DfE; then, you may not need the horizon-scanning, policy-making function that Skills England is proposing to offer. I suggest that you have either one or the other; you probably do not need both.