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

Baroness McGregor-Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his excellent maiden speech. I declare my interests as set out in the register in a number of businesses that would benefit from a strong economy.

My background is business and I am passionate about business and economic growth in the UK, but today it is a pleasure to speak to your Lordships in my capacity as chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, known as IfATE. I recently met with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, in her role as Minister of Skills in the Department for Education, and we agreed that the progress and achievements made by IfATE offer firm foundations for Skills England to build on, and that they support the Government’s ambitions on growth and opportunity across our economy.

I am proud of all that IfATE has achieved. No arms-length body is perfect, but it has done some fantastic things to begin the reform of the skills system that is so desperately needed. The baton will now pass to Skills England, an organisation whose remit will be much broader and wider. What matters now is keeping employers’ voices at the heart of the skills system. This has been central to the successes that IfATE has had and should form part of Skills England’s DNA. Growth will be underpinned by employers getting the skills that they need.

I will take the opportunity to outline to this House some of the achievements that IfATE, and the thousands of employers who have worked with it, have had since 2017. Apprenticeships and technical qualifications in the UK are all now based on IfATE’s occupational standards, which have been created using expert input from employers across the economy, covering everything from nursing to aerospace engineering. These standards capture the essential knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers want within their businesses, increasingly including more and more technology and AI. They form a spine within our skills system, from which apprenticeships and technical qualifications can grow.

I am proud of the breadth and range of standards that we have, which demonstrates how employers from every sector have engaged in the development of the skills system. I am also proud of the recent prototype, the skills compass, which IfATE has been developing in collaboration with the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Innovate UK. It will use labour market insights and AI to update rapidly these standards and capture changing skills needs. This is what we need in a responsive and flexible skills system.

IfATE has worked with employers to develop and approve over 700 apprenticeships, and 750,000 people participated in an apprenticeship in England last year. The estimated annual gain for employers from apprenticeships is between £2,500 and £18,000 per apprentice during their training, and many apprentices will remain loyal to their apprenticeship employers long-term. I am sure the many noble Lords who have met apprentices will know that they are so passionate and committed to what they do. I have been a big employer of them and am hugely proud of so many of their continuing achievements.

IfATE has set out occupational maps of career paths using apprenticeships and technical qualifications. They show everyone, from school leavers to employers, how you can progress in technical and professional careers. I am pleased to say that seven out of 10 of the mayoral combined authorities now use these maps and the back-office digital interface developed by IfATE to support their own careers guidance offerings. These maps are a real asset that can be transferred to Skills England as a result of this Bill.

IfATE has made great strides in working with employers to identify where existing occupations and apprenticeships can become greener, supporting sustainable growth and our net-zero targets for the UK. We have also supported the Government’s ambitions on T-levels. As we know, T-levels offer routes to professional careers, such as construction, nursing, agriculture and digital, with students able to progress to high-quality apprenticeships. They also offer an alternative route to university education, and 97% of T-level students who applied this year were offered a university place.

IfATE has approved over 230 technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5, providing a quality mark showing alignment to employer-led occupational standards, enabling learners to enter their chosen profession or progress to higher education. This is about expanding the opportunities that learners have to develop their careers and for businesses to get the high-quality skills that they need.

The list goes on. I wanted to share this picture to assure everyone that Skills England will inherit a skills system with the foundations in place. It still needs to be developed, but we are ready to realise the Government’s ambitions to reshape the economy and unlock growth. However, there is a lot more to do.

As well as translating the existing duties that IfATE has into powers for the Secretary of State, the Bill seeks to introduce flexibilities which will help to increase the pace at which we can deliver the skills that are needed by employers and learners. For example, the Bill sets out that groups of persons, currently in the form of employer groups known as trailblazers, may not always be required in the development of occupational standards and apprenticeships as is the case now. This provides the flexibility to make standards based on labour market data and information, and could avoid delays in revising and improving standards.

My view is that, while this flexibility is a sensible tool for the Secretary of State, we should still seek for the norm to be to combine this type of data-led insight with the views of groups of employers and other experts. This matters because it provides them with a direct stake and role in the shaping of the skills system. I would encourage the Secretary of State to make clear and publish her rationale for any exceptions where a group is not used in the development or updating of standards.

I also note that the Bill, in abolishing IfATE, removes the general duties that IfATE has with regard to the needs of learners and employers in exercising its functions. These are not replicated in the transfer of powers to the Secretary of State. I would welcome clarification from the Government on how they envisage Skills England will continue to ensure that those interests are considered under the system. In due course, strategic guidance to Skills England from the Secretary of State may be one helpful way of ensuring that these priorities are protected.

Before I finish, I want to thank my fellow IfATE board members, who represent many of the largest employers in the UK, and all the IfATE employees for all the outstanding work that has been done since 2017. I also thank Jennifer Coupland, the chief executive of IfATE, whom I really admire for her passion, expertise and leadership of the organisation.

In conclusion, I urge the Government not to lose momentum on the work that IfATE has done since 2017—there is too much at stake for everyone involved in the skills system—and to always keep the employer voice central to the development of apprenticeships, qualifications and flexible skills training. We should not forget that, as our workplaces are changed beyond recognition by further advances in technology and AI, we have to ensure that the entire country’s workforce still has the opportunity, under any new system, to constantly reskill.