Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

David Evennett Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to participate in this Second Reading debate. I should begin by congratulating the Secretary of State on her excellent speech, and on her passion for opportunity and excellence. I would also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on his speech, including his memories of his father. As someone who knew his father very well, and who went to some of his lunches when we had discussions about these sort of things, it brought back happy memories. [Interruption.] Ah, the Secretary of State is still here. I just wanted to say congratulations to her on bringing forward this Bill. I know she is passionate about opportunity, excellence and the fact that everyone should have a chance to develop themselves.

Many of us on these Benches have, over many years, been persistent in campaigning for lifelong learning and greater educational opportunities, irrespective of people’s backgrounds or situation. We have also praised our further education sector—the colleges—and I know the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, who is his place, has been a champion for the colleges. I believe that inspirational teachers, parents, role models, friends and school facilities are very important in encouraging young people, teenagers and people in their early 20s at college or university to go on and make something of themselves, but that is not enough. They need additional opportunities later on in life.

As someone who was a schoolteacher and subsequently, and more importantly in respect of this Bill, a college lecturer, I know from personal experience, as well as from constituency involvement, of the many students who, for many and various reasons, have not had the opportunity to continue in training, education or college courses. Their ambitions and their careers were stymied because they did not have that opportunity. When I was out of Parliament between 1997 and 2005, I was privileged to meet and to teach students at Bexley College, which at the time was led by the inspirational principal Dr Jim Healey. I taught women returners, the unemployed, those who wanted qualifications, those who needed qualifications to advance in their jobs and those who wanted to change careers. In particular, I was dealing with Institute of Personnel Management courses. They were good opportunities, but they were limited in scope—they did not go far enough—and now we are addressing that situation.

I would like to praise the Open University. I think we should do that, because it has done fantastic work in offering modules, degrees, courses and education at a high level with greater flexibility for students in relation to both age and time. However, this is not enough, and that is why we need other ways of ensuring that people obtain qualifications below degree level.

In today’s rapidly changing world, it is essential that we have a skilled, educated and motivated workforce to meet the challenges of modern Britain. We must never forget that we never stop learning—all of us, throughout life, are continuing to learn—particularly in the technological age we are in. When I left Parliament in 1997, we were still using electronic typewriters. We did not have computers or mobile phones, and it was a bit of a shock when I came back in 2005. Fortunately, however, I had been at a college, Bexley College, where I was able to do some courses, so I therefore understood and could do the basics. I still cannot type very well, but that is a different matter.

[Aaron Bell]

I am learning a lot about my right hon. Friend’s history, which I am finding very interesting. On Friday in the Chamber, we discussed the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, which the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) brought in. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that these measures encouraging more mature students back into education go hand-in-hand with the reforms the Government are making to flexible working, which mean that people can continue to learn while they are earning and broadening their skills?

[Sir David Evennett]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point.

Lifelong learning is important; learning is not just for the young. Opportunities should be there for people to re-enter the world of learning and training throughout their individual working life. It is good news, therefore, that the Bill creates the flexibility for individuals to decide what and when they wish to study over their working life in order to progress their life, increase their skills and make something more of themselves. I particularly welcome the lifelong loan entitlement, as it will improve access to education and certainly accelerate the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to reach their full potential irrespective of their background or the lack of opportunity they had at school or college. People in established careers should also have an equal opportunity to pursue further studies. As a product of social mobility—like many colleagues on both sides of the Chamber—I am a firm believer that access to education should be fair and available to all who choose to look for and pursue it. The loan will enable those trapped in unemployment or low-paid jobs to undertake further study. That will improve their skills and employability, and their opportunities throughout life.

Research by Universities UK suggests that 35% of those who considered part-time education in the past 10 years did not enrol because of their personal life or their employment situation. We have to change that in modern Britain, and that is what the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Department are doing. My constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford will be delighted to know that they can pursue further studies to suit their own pace, time and opportunities, without paying a premium for doing so.

I am keen for the simplification of the higher education system to enable wider and easier access. Research by the Department for Education suggests that the complexity of the student finance system and the difficulty in obtaining information for mature students are major factors that deter people from going back into study. The lifelong loan entitlement will offer a system that is easier to understand—my goodness, in today’s society, don’t we need things that are easier to understand, because of the complexities of life? [Interruption.] I see Mr Deputy Speaker is agreeing with me, and he is young by comparison. Things such as clearer detail on financial entitlements will no doubt encourage more people to study. I hope the Secretary of State will agree that to get the full benefit of the scheme, we must embark on an education and information campaign, targeting those who will find it of particular interest and benefit. It is no good thinking they will just find out; we have to go out there and sell it.

I am concerned, of course, by the skills gap that is plaguing our economy, particularly in this time of considerable economic challenge for our nation. In August 2022, the Federation of Small Businesses reported that 80% of small firms were facing difficulties recruiting applicants with suitable skills. As I go round my borough and constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford, a number of businesses say that they cannot get staff who have the necessary levels of training or education. People do not have the opportunity to obtain further qualifications, and therefore those businesses cannot get the necessary skilled workforce.

We must endeavour to ensure that the UK remains an attractive investment proposition, with its skilled and talented workforce. I believe we have the people in this country, but they need the opportunity, training and skills development. We can then be No. 1 again in so many fields and be competitive across the world. We cannot afford to fall behind our counterparts, which is what we seem to have been doing. The lifelong loan entitlement will address that skills gap by enabling employees to continue to upskill as they progress through their careers.

For many, it may be more sensible to learn over a period of years because they have other commitments—families or other interests—in their lives. They may wish to develop practical experience first, and there is nothing wrong with that. People do not necessarily want to go on a three-year university course. They may not be ready for it or feel that the time is right. As our economy continues to shift towards greater automation, it will be crucial for employees to develop more technical skills. Low-skilled jobs will be those most at threat from automation, so we must equip those currently working in such jobs with the skills to ensure that they can thrive in an increasingly technological economy and society.

The Bill will be of huge benefit to all our constituents and all the countries in our United Kingdom, bringing the skills that employers want and that employees need. The result, hopefully, will be the happier and better paid workforce that we are looking for.

I believe, in all honesty, that the Government have done a considerable amount over the past decade or so and have a good record on education. I listened to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), whom I respect. I always listen to him with great interest because he is measured and reasonable—though usually wrong. But he is a nice chap, and he put forward some thought-provoking ideas for us today. That is why the Bill needs cross-party support, including from the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) of the Liberal Democrats. I am not going to get party political—the Liberal Democrats always like to do that. We are trying to be constructive.

On technical education, over the last few years we have introduced T-levels, so that all people can access a world-class education. I did the old traditional A-levels. I enjoyed them and they suited me. As we have heard, I am not very good at technology. I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) will let me forget it. Nevertheless, young people can gain skills via the revamped T-levels. High quality is the key. Everything we do in education has to be high quality, not substandard. I therefore passionately support what the Government have done with T-levels, practical learning and industry placement. It is the best of both worlds.

[Aaron Bell]

On high quality, does my right hon. Friend recognise, from the independent Wolf review, that at least 350,000 young people were let down by courses that had little or no labour market value? That is what we need to change. As well as bringing forward lifelong learning, we need to ensure that all courses, whether for undergraduates of traditional age or older, offer value for money.

[Sir David Evennett]

Absolutely. I would also highlight the £490 million in extra funding that the Government are delivering to boost training and upgrade colleges and universities across the country. I must praise my own college, Bexley College, which has now merged into London South East Colleges under the successful and inspirational leadership of Dr Sam Parrett CBE. She is a brilliant and dynamic woman who is driving the agenda we desperately need. The Government’s extra funds will boost colleges’ training and upgrade colleges. This particular college is very good. It is an amalgam of several colleges in south-east London. There is a buzz and it is looking to the future. The traditional old-fashioned FE colleges were good in their day, but their day was yesterday, or even before that, when the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester was in government in the 1980s. The Government are also investing £350 million to renovate further education colleges, which is welcome.

[Mr Robin Walker]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I could not resist the opportunity to welcome the progress being made on new science and tech labs at Worcester Sixth Form College, which I visited just the other day. The college has been transformed by successive small investments under this Government, while under the Labour Government it got the promise of a complete rebuild under Building Colleges for the Future, which then got cancelled when they ran out of money for their programme. Is that not an example of how we can invest more effectively and productively for our college estate?

[Sir David Evennett]

My hon. Friend makes a brilliant point. I think we would all agree that what we need is upgrading and progress, rather than pie-in-the-sky ideas. We must get practical.

The other thing I want to highlight is that colleges in local areas should provide for local needs, boosting the skills that are necessary in that area. The skills needed in my area of south-east London are probably different from those needed in Worcester or in other parts of the country. The Bill creates a new duty for further education colleges, sixth-form colleges and designated institutions to ensure that the provision of further education is fully aligned with local needs and requirements. This is another way to ensure we have the employment and opportunities for young people and not so young people to make a real contribution to their community, and to strengthen the accountability and performance of local colleges and the businesses involved in helping the programme forward.

There is a lot to be pleased about in this small Bill, and I look forward to debating it in Committee if I am privileged enough to be put on it by the Whips, though I do not usually blot my copybook. We will discuss certain bits of the Bill and we will all have ideas for how to tweak it, but we must be grateful to the Government for putting forward an excellent, necessary and most welcome Bill that will support the introduction of a lifelong loan entitlement from 2025 and promote a culture of upskilling and retraining.

The Bill will help to open up higher and further education by introducing new methods and limiting the fees that can be charged based on credits. That is really positive, good news. Students will therefore be charged a proportionate amount depending on the number of credits studied, encouraging more people to study by taking advantage of the flexibility that the scheme will offer. We have seen flexibility in work because of covid and changing work patterns. Many people have found that to their liking, and many businesses have as well. Flexibility must be the word for our era, because it gives opportunity to so many more people.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I obviously welcome that the fees charged will be limited, but I presume that the colleges will be able to choose the packages that they offer, so is there a danger that they will be less inclined to offer modules if they cannot charge extremely exorbitant rates for them?

[Sir David Evennett]

I know that my right hon. Friend has a touch of cynicism. I am an optimist, and I believe that the colleges will want to take up the opportunity, because that will show the success of what they are doing. They are part of the local community, so they need to get real. We will have to discuss that point further. I encourage my right hon. Friend to beat the drum in the colleges in his constituency and to tell them that it is their civic or local duty—whatever we want to call it—to do these kinds of things. But we should be wary of what he says.

The Bill is the key to the Government’s skills revolution and it will support our businesses, long-term productivity and job creation. That is particularly important as we deal with the difficult times of the cost of living crisis and other things we will face in the future. We need to make the most of our opportunities. I welcome the Bill; I look forward to it passing into law and to the opportunities it will give so many people across our country for more studying, more career development, more skills and, hopefully, a more successful career.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Evennett]

Does the Minister agree that the Bill will be transformational? By enabling people to change careers, change skills and develop talents throughout their working lives, it will make people’s lives better and their opportunities much greater?

[Robert Halfon]

My right hon. Friend, who made a brilliant speech, is absolutely right. We will also be resourcing this in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) wanted with our extra spending on skills and further education colleges. I also thank her for her important speech.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill (First sitting)

David Evennett Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Western]

Q So you would support remote learners being covered by this?

Professor Press: I would, because I think we should focus on the outcomes for learners, rather than the inputs to the learning.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

Q Good morning, Professor Press. We are grateful to you for being with us today. I have two questions. First, do you think this approach is exciting for universities and offers real opportunities for advance? Secondly, what administrative challenges do you foresee for your university arising from the introduction of this approach and the courses offered?

Professor Press: Those are great questions. I really do think it is exciting, because it provides learners with the opportunity to study in a different way, and the more we can do to encourage people to focus on their professional development, the better it will be for our businesses and employers across the country.

The key challenge, I think, will be around the information, advice and guidance that people get about what the opportunity is, particularly for adult learners, who may not be in institutions that are used to providing that sort of careers guidance. That will be a particular challenge for any institution. Who is responsible for doing all of that? There will be many partners responsible for doing that, and that really does matter.

The challenges for my university—I am answering as vice-chancellor, rather than as a UUK representative—will be the mechanics of how we do all this. We are used to recruiting, admitting, onboarding, educating and supporting with pastoral care students who come mostly for three or four-year programmes. We will have to evolve ways of doing that for students who come for 30-credit—or multiple 30-credit—modules. There will be an additional cost of doing that, so we will need to work out what we can offer that can be delivered sustainably, given the cost base. That means that there will need to be a sufficient supply of students wanting to take a particular module, and a demand from the workplace for those students to achieve a successful outcome. We will look very carefully at what we offer. This gives us a chance to tailor our provision to local demand from employers. It is not without its challenges, but it is an exciting prospect.

[Sir David Evennett]

Q Will this mean that you need more collaboration with other universities and colleges in your area, so that you are not duplicating, and so that you can fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, so that students and would-be students have the greatest choice?

Professor Press: That is exactly right. I will not digress too much, but in Manchester we have an organisation called the Oxford Road Corridor, which is the businesses and employers on the Oxford Road; they include my university and the University of Manchester. We are already looking at what Manchester Met and the University of Manchester can offer together to support the other members of the corridor, which are the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester City Council and some private businesses, and to encourage local people to upskill. We are already trying to work together, and this makes it easier because it provides a mechanism and a funding stream that can assist with that.

[Sir David Evennett]

That is very encouraging; thank you.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Q On the number of new students who are likely to take up learning opportunities and would not have done so without this provision, how much of a game changer do you believe this legislation will be? Is it likely to bring lots of new students into learning, or will it just be an alternative option for those who would have studied? Secondly, is there anything you would like to see in the legislation that might enable it to be used by more learners?

Professor Press: Our university does not offer higher technical qualifications, and we do not validate providers that deliver HTQs. At the moment, the provision is targeted at a particular group of learners. Once it opens up in 2027-28, it will provide significant opportunities for both new and current learners who might want to space out their learning in a different way. My understanding—again, forgive me if I have misunderstood—is that this will develop slowly while we work out how we can operationalise it, and then there is a point at which it can open out and support many additional new learners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Q Alun, you are nodding along; did you want to say anything about the safeguards that might need to be in the Bill?

Alun Francis: I am with Ellen on this: I have not thought it through sufficiently to give a really punchy answer to your question, but I do think it is a concern. It is about the balance of who should pay for training. It feels like there is the potential for it to skew perhaps too much towards the employer encouraging learners to pay for training that the employer could pay for. How we police that, I do not know. There is a variety of things that we might explore in more detail, but I cannot give you a really clear sense of how we would solve that problem right now.

[Sir David Evennett]

Q I am particularly interested in potential older students who are in employment and want to progress or change their careers. First, I welcome what you have said about business involvement, but now that we have a new framework—or will do, hopefully, when the Bill is passed—what can you do to try to get more employers involved who have not expressed interest in the past?

Secondly, you highlighted how hard you have worked, Ellen, to reach the disadvantaged, and I am sure that your two colleagues are doing the same. How are you doing outreach to those who are in employment to let them know what you offer?

Ellen Thinnesen: In terms of the work we do with employers to help them to understand what is available, which I think is what the question was about, in a college such as mine, and I know in many other colleges, we employ business development teams—essentially employer liaison personnel—whose entire job is to work with employers and help them to understand how they can translate their workforce development needs into workforce solutions and upskill and reskill their workforce. That is easier for larger colleges such as mine; I can flex funding and use it in creative and different ways. We go back to the underfunded nature of colleges and the impact on smaller colleges, where it is incredibly difficult to do that.

On outreach, we employ a significant number of school liaison personnel, who are out working on a daily and weekly basis in schools giving careers information, advice and guidance, and delivering training to school teachers and staff. Again, I am able to do that, as I am sure Liz is in Newcastle College Group, because we are large enough to be able to reconfigure our budget to invest in resources such as that. Again, for smaller colleges, that is not always possible.

For example, my college merged with a sixth form in 2017, which now benefits from that service. Prior to the merger, it would never have been able to deliver that type of infrastructure to enable employers to understand what they need to do and what is available, and to enhance outreach.

[Sir David Evennett]

Q That is great, but what about those who are, say, 40 and coming back into the workforce—women returners and people who want to change careers? How will you get out in your community to encourage them, when this goes through, to take up the opportunities that your great colleges are providing?

Ellen Thinnesen: For example, at Sunderland College, we have established a partnership with Sunderland City Council and the DWP, and we co-locate with the DWP. When a service user comes in to job-seek, the college is sitting side by side with the DWP and is able to provide that line of sight to educational routes. Similarly, we are working with employers and the workforce. We do a lot of workforce analysis.

[Sir David Evennett]

Q Brilliant. Are you doing the same in your areas?

Alun Francis: indicated assent.

Liz Bromley: indicated assent.

[Sir David Evennett]

Q That is really good news, because you are outreaching to people who are in jobs. Their employer may not be interested, but they may be.

Liz Bromley: FE colleges are absolutely part of the community. We have so many ways to engage with everybody in the community, from refugees to 16-year-olds and 60-years-olds who are looking for a change of career. We are absolutely embedded in our communities in ways that sometimes universities are not because they have a more global outlook. We have to be very fleet of foot. We have to use digital media, paper-based media, posters and, most of all, the art of engagement through conversation, which we do very well.

Alun Francis: I absolutely endorse what Liz just said. I will just add a couple of very quick observations. First, the way colleges work with employers to design and deliver curriculums is one of the most misunderstood parts of our job. We need to have more investment in doing that better. Under devolution, the Mayor’s role can be very strong around convening powers, but the key to getting the skill system working well is the partnership between employers and providers, and FE colleges are key to that.

I will give you a very good example, which relates to the question that one of your colleagues asked a few moments ago about phasing. We endorsed phasing because it allows us to grow the capacity to do this well. In Greater Manchester, all 10 FE colleges have been collaborating for over 18 months, supported by the skills development fund, to develop the new higher technical qualifications in digital, and we are now moving on to the structure. That is a really good example of how colleges have worked together, and engaged employers to come up with a product that we think will be very attractive for learners. We have collectively built our skillset, and we have supported that with marketing and so on. As you described, we will make that qualification work really well. That is a methodology that I think other colleges will emulate and copy.

Investment in the capacity of colleges to work with employers and the workforce issue are the two big challenges around this curriculum reform. Those are the two that we find hardest.

[Sir David Evennett]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

We just have time for one more very quick question.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill (Second sitting)

David Evennett Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st March 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

Q Simon, we just heard from Matthew that one of the reasons that businesses are not able to invest in training is their inability to access a course, maybe because the provider—whether it is from the public or private sectors—cannot recruit the lecturers or the course does not pay. One of the strengths of your members has been their relationships with employers, and what we have seen under the apprenticeship regime is that, since we have had more of an employer-led approach, the bigger employers have taken on more and more apprenticeships, and SMEs have quite often been left out. Given that one of the ideas in the Bill is that new courses will be produced—to be paid for by the learners—to what extent is there an expectation that learners at SMEs might miss out again? The bigger employers might be able to have a course with 10 to 15 employees who can come to the fore. Once again, we will have a skills system that excludes SMEs.

Simon Ashworth: I think there is a real possibility of that risk materialising. As you say, one of the big challenges for SMEs is the complexity of accessing and funding the system. We know that large employers have a significant influence, certainly on institutions, around course development and course design, so we could see some of the challenges that you have articulated replicated here in terms of the provision and some of the accessibility arrangements. As you say, on the apprenticeship side, the role of providers to support SMEs is pivotal, because SMEs and small employers tend to be time poor as well—I am thinking about their engaging with the system. But I would absolutely echo the challenges with the LLE that we have seen in apprenticeships.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

Q Your comments so far have been very interesting. There are two things I would like to raise. First, you mentioned publicity, and a lot of firms do not know what training is available. That obviously needs to be addressed by employers, politicians and the Government.

Secondly, one of the things we find when going around the country in various roles is that businesses complain that they are not getting people trained to have the skills they require. Do you think that the Bill will encourage more businesses to get more involved with universities and colleges, so that they can work together to make sure that they are encouraging colleges and universities to have the courses to fill the skills shortages? Subsequently, the firms will be able to participate in the upskilling, as well as individuals, or the Government.

Matthew Percival: I completely agree with the sentiment and the objective of how we get employers more involved in the system; I am not sure this is the mechanism we are pinning our hopes on for that. You would expect more of that objective to be achieved through a reform like the local skills improvement plans, which try to get that employer voice out to provide us with that bit more, rather than this being the specific mechanism for it.

To your earlier comment about employer engagement with programmes, the job we really have to do is not just to say, “Let’s make employers aware of the LLE”, but to ask whether we actually have a coherent story to take to employers and say to them, “This is what is valuable for you about engaging in this process and why you should do it.” If we have that story to tell, we can be a lot more effective in helping to engage people.

Often the way it comes across to employers is that there is a whole plethora of initiatives and they will say, “I am confused as to which one”. I know part of my job, as a representative employer, is to hold a bit of that challenge back to them and say, “Well, you can’t say both that you need it to be dead simple and there to be only one option, and when there is only one option say, ‘There isn’t an option that works for me.’”

We need a plurality of different initiatives and options, but we also need to challenge and support employers to navigate that environment. Rather than just saying, “Let’s try to raise awareness” and getting them to tick the box that says, “I’ve heard of the LLE”, because they might have heard about it as individuals rather than as employers, it is about how much we can get to the objective of them giving us quite a consistent message that, “This is the value in it for me, and I am confident that I know that element of it”, rather than just brand awareness.

Simon Ashworth: We refer to our members—providers —as the sales force. I think there is absolutely a role for Government to do with engaging employers. Our members—independent training providers, colleges and universities—deal with employers all the time. It is important to harness their links with industry and employers around awareness of the LLE. Ultimately, the LLE and the entitlement is about the individual as well. There is the employer demand and the employer support, but there is also the individual because, at the end of the day, it will be the individual who takes out the loan entitlement. There is a role for organisations such as UCAS to help promote that.

I would certainly encourage the Government to work with stakeholders and providers, which could do some of the heavy lifting around awareness. I do not think it is just the Government’s role to try to reach a million employers. I think they need to pull on all the different stakeholders that can promote the programme and make it a success.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Q I am glad that Matthew referred to the local skills improvement plans. I would be interested in hearing what your view is as to what connectivity they should have with the system that is coming forward. That is one question.

My other question is probably to Simon. I started work in the ’90s, and we definitely had a skills shortage then. It seems that we have always had a skills shortage, so why is that? What have we learned or not learned from it? What is wrong with the current system? How will this solve the problem?

Matthew Percival: I will answer both. On the way businesses are thinking about the LSIPs programme, the best model is if it is adding an employer voice into the system for those employers that are currently struggling to have a voice. A lot of employers that feel they are confident with their existing provider relationship—they are understood and are getting what they want—are taking a backseat from LSIPs, because LSIPs are not a skills plan for the area with the totality of all skills needs. It is an extra source of information to try to give a voice to the businesses that are struggling most for a voice at the moment.

If that was to feed into the LLE through a consideration of how we make that information available to learners to make informed choices—I spoke about the LLE being less about someone who is in a job already and how they progress with the current employer, and more about how they navigate the labour market—and we were able to say, “Actually, there is a demand in the local area,” it is the LSIPs that would help work out what the job opportunities are.

What LSIPs will not be able to do, and where there would need to be some extra support in the LLE system, would be giving advice on what training someone would buy that would get them to the point of readiness for an employer to hire them with training, rather than their being fully competent. That is an element to add. That would be the interaction between LSIPs and the LLE for me.

Simon Ashworth: On local skills improvement plans, we have been fortunate to be involved in some of the pilots. Some of the findings for us were that employers are just keen to get individuals with really good basic skills—maths and English—and who turn up on time. They are quite happy to support them with the technical skills. There is almost an acceptance now of getting people in and being willing to invest in them and train them. We should not lose sight, certainly on the local skills improvement plans, of some of those key employability skills.

The question on skills shortages is key. Some of it is a lack of coherence around the skills system—a lack of progression. Apprenticeships are a really good example, where the reforms started with the development of high-level programmes, and lower-level programmes tended to come later. Having progression pathways is important. We also rely too much on imported labour. We have seen that coming back again in the imported skills in construction announced recently.

We see a lack of synergy between some of the Government Departments—the Departments for Work and Pensions, for Education, for Business and Trade—and some conflicting programmes. They are very complex for employers to understand and for learners to access, whether it is the Skills Bootcamp or the Restart programme. They just operate in silos. We need a much more integrated system that does not overlap, which is less complex for employers, and a lack of reliance on foreign labour; those are some of the challenges that we would say are holding things back, as well as having those skills shortages.