Levelling Up White Paper Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Redfern
Main Page: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Redfern's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, we need to understand that different funds have different priorities. The £4.8 billion levelling-up fund seeks to improve infrastructure and productivity, while the UK shared prosperity fund will deal with the issues around skills and replaces much of the funding that we saw through the EU structural funds. We need to see that in the round and, of course, the White Paper will provide further detail.
My Lords, with the much-awaited publishing of the White Paper on levelling up, growing the private sector is what we all want to see in progress. As we see businesses planning at record levels of digital investment, does the Minister agree that priority must be given to reforming the skills system to better align with employers’ demands because of the acute skills shortage?
I agree entirely with my noble friend. We do not want anyone to have to leave somewhere they love in order to have a truly fulfilling career. That is why we are investing £3.8 billion in skills by 2024-25 and have just set up our new adult numeracy programme, Multiply, to get hundreds of thousands more adults with functional numeracy skills across the United Kingdom.