Violence against Women and Girls

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on securing this debate. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of launching a new report, “Why Should Our Rage Be Tidy? Minoritised Survivors’ Experiences of Mental Health in the Context of Violence-Abuse.” I hope the Minister has a copy—if she does not, I will make sure she gets one—because it contains some excellent recommendations. It was produced by Imkaan and the Women and Girls Network, and it has received UK Research and Innovation funding. When we hear the statistics, such as one woman killed every three days, we think: “When is that going to change? How are we going to change it?” That report will help.

I also want to highlight the Level Up campaign, which calls on the Independent Press Standards Organisation to introduce an amendment to the editors’ code so that when the press reports on domestic abuse and the murder of missing women, it does not sensationalise them as it normally does. That needs to change. It is inaccurate and undignified, and it prioritises sensationalism and negatively frames the victims—it suggests that they deserved it. I want to see words such as “sexism”, “misogyny”, “extremism” and “terrorism” used to describe violent men; “jilted partner” just will not do. I hope the Minister looks at that report so that we can work together and begin to move in the direction of eradicating violence against women and girls.

Facial Recognition: Police Use

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Whittingdale]

As I understand it, the number of false positives recorded depends to some extent on the threshold at which the technology is set.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

The report by the national physical laboratory said that it had to be set at 0.6 for it to have fewer misidentifications, but there is no such thing as no misidentifications or people not being wrongly identified. It is also easy for a police service to lower that number. Because we have no judicial oversight, it is very problematic.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

The hon. Lady is completely right. I think the police are generally being responsible in its use and setting the threshold as recommended, but that is another example where there is no requirement on them to do so, and they could lower it. Regarding deployment in Essex, the chief constable told me there was just one false positive.

I attended a meeting with Baroness Chakrabarti, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington, where Shaun Thompson, an anti-knife community worker, spoke to us. He had been held by the police for 30 minutes and forced to provide all sorts of identity documents, as a result of a false positive. On the extent to which it is occurring and whether racial bias is involved, there is some evidence that that is the case. That makes it all the more important that we provide assurances.

We have heard from several campaign organisations that are concerned about the use. They vary in the extent to which they believe it is a legitimate technology. Big Brother Watch has described live facial recognition technology as

“constant generalised surveillance”

and has said that it is

“indiscriminately subjecting members of the public to mass identity checks”

which undermines the presumption of innocence.

Liberty has gone further, saying:

“Creating law to govern police and private company use…will not solve the human rights concerns or the tech’s inbuilt discrimination…The only solution is to ban it.”

I do not agree with that, because I think there is clear evidence that it has a real benefit in helping the police apprehend people who are wanted for serious offences, but one of my major concerns is the lack of any clarity in law about how it should be used.

I am grateful to the Library, which has provided advice on that point. It says:

“There is no dedicated legislation in the UK on the use of facial recognition technologies.”

Instead, its use is governed by common law and by an interpretation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, although that Act does not mention live facial recognition technology, and some case law, such as the Bridges case. Even in the Bridges case, the Court of Appeal found that

“The current policies do not sufficiently set out the terms on which discretionary powers can be exercised by the police and for that reason do not have the necessary quality of law.”

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[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) —or I could say my right hon. Friend, if he does not mind—for securing this debate. I have spoken to the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and there is an awareness that we need a lot of careful and considerate thinking on this issue. Obviously, a new Government have just come in and this is not a new issue, as the right hon. Member for Maldon said—LFR was first used in 2017, so there is a lot of clearing up that has to be done.

Live facial recognition changes one of the cornerstones of our democracy: an individual is innocent until proven guilty. With this technology, if the machine says an individual is guilty because they have been identified using live facial recognition, they then have to prove their innocence. That is a huge change in our democracy that nobody has consented to. We have not consented to it in this place, and as we police by consent as a society, that should really worry us all.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I am looking forward to this debate and to concluding it for the Opposition later.

On the question of changing the burden of proof or undermining the concept that someone is innocent until proven guilty, the technology absolutely does not change that. What it does is give the police a reason to stop somebody and check their identity to see whether they are the person wanted for a criminal offence. It certainly does not provide evidence on which a conviction might be secured. In fact, it is no different from the police stopping someone because they are suspicious of them, and it is a lot more accurate than stop and search, about which I am sure the hon. Lady has views. It is simply a tool to enable the police to stop somebody and check their identity to see whether they are the person who is wanted. It certainly does not undermine the very important principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

[Dawn Butler]

The shadow Minister has hit on an important point regarding reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable suspicion? How have the police got to that point? If he is then going to make reference to watchlists, who is put on a watchlist? We know, for instance, that the Met police has hundreds of thousands of people on its system who should not be there. We know that the watchlist can consist of people it considers to be vulnerable, such as those with mental health issues. Anybody in this room could be put on a watchlist, so I am afraid the shadow Minister has not quite nailed the point he was trying to make.

[David Davis]

I am very much on the hon. Lady’s side of that argument, partly because we are a country where it is not normal to stop people and ask for their identity cards, which is why we have had a few battles over that in the past. Also, the technology is prone to slippage. Way back when—probably when the hon. Lady was still at school—we introduced automatic number plate recognition to monitor IRA terrorists coming from Liverpool to London. That was its exact purpose, but thereafter it got used for a dozen other things, without any legislative change or any approval by Parliament.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask Members to keep interventions as interventions?

[Dawn Butler]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain. Yes, it is really important that we talk about this openly. That is what we are supposed to do in this place, right? Anybody can be put on the watchlist. Seven police forces are currently using LFR. One that I know of—I am not sure about the others—the Metropolitan Police Service, is in special measures. I do not think it should be given any additional powers while it is in special measures.

The thing is that we know very little about the software or what is in the black box that is developed by these systems. What we can look at is the outcome, and we know that the outcome does not identify very well black women’s faces, especially, and black and Asian people. There is a lower identification threshold for those people, so that is a concern.

It is also really interesting that even when LFR is set at 0.6, a police super-spotter is more accurate. We have specialist police officers who spot people very quickly, and they are more accurate than this system, so it becomes the case that a police service will try to prove that the system it has bought is value for money. We can imagine a police officer not getting many hits with LFR at 0.6 and lowering that to 0.5 so that they can get more hits, which in turn means that more people are misidentified, so there should be regulation around this issue.

Taking away somebody’s liberty is one of the most serious things we can do in society, so we need to think very carefully if we are going to introduce something that accelerates that. It is good that for the first time we are having the debate on this issue. As the right hon. Member for Maldon said, the EU permits LFR only where there is prior judicial authorisation and in cases in which the police need to locate a missing person, for instance. That is something we need to consider.

I want to say this: I like technology. I am very much into our civil liberties. We need to protect our digital rights as human beings and individuals. I love technology— I used to be a coder—but we should not rush to do things because people get excited. There are really four people in the debate on this issue. It reminds me of four of my mates when we go out clubbing. Bear with me. We have the person who will stay at home because they are not bothered—they do not care—and we have the people who do not care about this issue: “It is going to happen; let it happen.” We have the person who will come, but they are a bit moany. They do not really like the music, but they will come anyway because they do not want to miss out.

We then have the person who is completely drunk on it all: “Give it to me. I’ll take everything.” There are people who just love anything to do with technology and will say, “Look, let’s just throw it all in the mix and it’ll all be fine.” And there is me. I am the person who likes the music and the food, but I need to keep sober to make sure everyone gets home safely. In this debate about AI, we need to be sober to make sure that everybody gets home safely and that when we roll out AI, we do so in a way that is fair and compassionate and in line with our values as British citizens.

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[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank every Member here for coming to this debate and I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for securing it in the first place.

I have worked on this issue for many years. In my previous job, I attended and observed the first deployments of live facial recognition by the Metropolitan police, which is many years ago now. Since then, the gap between its increasing use and the lack of a legislative basis has grown wider and wider. In that time, many thousands of people have had their personal data captured and used by the police when there was absolutely no reason for that. Many people have been misidentified, but the accuracy issue is not my main concern.

The unlegislated use of the technology is incredibly worrying. In my previous job on the London Assembly, I asked the Met and the Mayor of London many questions about that. I asked for watchlist transparency, but I did not get it. I heard the initial promises—“Oh, it will be very transparently used, we will communicate it, and no one will have to walk past it without knowing.” All those reassurances just faded away, because there is no real scrutiny or legislation. We need to debate the subject from first principles. As other Members have pointed out, we have had proper debates about identity cards and fingerprint and DNA data, but not about this extremely intrusive technology. It is more concerning than other technologies because it can be used on us without our knowledge. It really does engage our human rights in profound ways.

For all those reasons, the use of facial recognition by the police has been challenged by the Information Commissioner, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner, the Biometrics Commissioner, London Assembly members, of whom I was one, Senedd Members and Members of Parliament here. The only detailed scrutiny of the technology has resulted in calls for a halt to its use; I am thinking of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee has also called for primary legislation. That is the absolutely key question. The EU has had the debate and looked at the issue in detail, with the result that over there what is used so much by the UK police is restricted to only the most serious cases of genuine public safety. That absolutely needs to happen here.

The legislation needs to look not just at police use of the technology, but private use. I have seen its use by private companies in the privately owned public space in King’s Cross. Data from there has been shared with the police; the police initially denied knowing anything about it and then later apologised for that denial. If private companies are collecting data and sharing it with the police, that needs to be scrutinised. If private companies are using the technology, that needs to be legislated for as well.

[Dawn Butler]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech. Is she aware of the Big Brother Watch campaign to try to stop large shops from capturing people’s faces and saying that they are shoplifters? They then get stopped in other places, but they are not aware of that process.

[Siân Berry]

Yes, I am aware of Big Brother Watch’s excellent campaigning on this issue. It has identified a serious breach of human rights. There is the potential for a serious injustice if people are denied access to their local shops based on a suspicion that has put them on a watchlist that may or may not be accurate. There is no oversight. We need to debate these things and legislate for them.

I tabled a written question to the Minister about putting regulation and legislation behind the police use of live facial recognition. The answer stated that the technology is governed by data protection and equality and human rights legislation, and supplemented by specific police guidance. I do not believe that police guidance is sufficient, given the enormous risks to human rights. We need a debate on primary legislation. I hope that the Minister will announce that that process will start soon and that this unlawful grey area will not be invading our privacy for much longer. This issue is urgent.

[James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Reform)]

I appreciate that we are having this debate, because it is surprising that we have got to where we are without legislation and firm frameworks in place. I really like the phrase “first principles”, and one of the first principles of the police is “without fear or favour”. That is an exceptional phrase that, if perfectly implemented, we would all benefit from, although of course we recognise that in the real world there is no such thing as perfect.

I am grateful that concerns have been raised about how the technology we are discussing impacts the assumption of innocence—we should all be very careful about that—although I also appreciate the point that it does not impact innocence but provides the opportunity for a human to check. If done properly, that is no bad thing, but we are right to discuss the issue in serious terms in our legislature because there is a danger of an unofficial assumption of guilt. Let us take the example of local shopping centres, which we heard about earlier. If an issue has not been escalated to the police or courts, but some local security officers have seen the same images on cameras and that information has gone round by radio, a gentleman or a lady out with their children doing the weekly shop may suddenly not be able to get in and do what they need to do. That is the kind of pervasive and damaging thing that could easily slip under the radar; we should all be mindful of that.

I want to touch briefly on transparency. This is clearly a developing technology and we would be wrong not to look at its benefits, but we must be mindful of the harm it could do along the way. If people find that they are getting an unfair crack of the whip—that is probably an inappropriate term—and are suffering as a result of this technology, we need to nip that in the bud, and be very direct and open about the failures so that we can make adjustments.

[Dawn Butler]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that black men are eight times more likely to be stopped and search by the police than their white counterparts, and 35 times more likely under section 60? This technology accelerates the discrimination that is already in the system.

[James McMurdock]

Absolutely. Let me put it like this: if any of us were to turn up at a social event and unexpectedly find a large swarm of police, that would give us a moment’s pause for thought. We need to be careful to ensure that this technology is not a more pervasive version of that example. It must not be constantly in existence, attached to every CCTV camera, without us even being aware of it.

To go back to transparency, we have to be open and frank about any issues with how the technology is being implemented, so that we can fix them. I agree that there absolutely could be issues, and we definitely want to be on the right path.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

But when we look at the numbers of people, something like 0.5% of scans—I cannot remember the statistic—still result in somebody being misidentified.

[Chris Philp]

On the misidentification rate, I think the Bridges court case set a standard of a false positive rate of one in 1,000: out of every 1,000 people stopped, 999 are the people the police think they are, while one is misidentified. The Minister may have more up-to-date figures, but from my recollection the system in practice is running at about one in 6,000. That is an extraordinarily high accuracy rate—much more accurate than a regular stop and search.

About 25% to 30% of regular physical stops and searches, where a police officer stops someone and searches them for drugs or a knife or something, are successful. About 70% are unsuccessful, while the equivalent figure for live facial recognition is 0.02%. That means that this technology is 4,500 times less likely to result in someone being inappropriately stopped than a regular stop and search. It therefore hugely—by three orders of magnitude—reduces the likelihood of someone being improperly stopped and searched.

I turn to the use of the technology on the ground. I asked for it to be trialled in the centre of Croydon, which is the borough I represent in Parliament. Over the past nine months or so, it has been deployed on a relatively regular basis: about once a week. I believe that the Minister was supposed to go down this morning to have a look; I certainly encourage her to go again as soon as she can. By the way, the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) asked whether people know when the technology is being used. The answer is yes: one of the guidelines is that public signage must be displayed telling the public that the technology is in use.

Over that period in Croydon, there have been approximately 200 arrests of people who would not otherwise have been arrested, including for all kinds of offences such as class A drugs supply, grievous bodily harm, fraud and domestic burglary. It has also included a man who had been wanted for two rapes dating back to 2017. That wanted rapist would be free to this day if not for this technology. Just a couple of weeks ago, a man was stopped and subsequently arrested in relation to a rape allegation from June this year. There are people who are alleged to have committed rape who would not have been stopped—who would still be walking free—if not for this technology. It is only the fact that they walked past a camera outside East Croydon station or somewhere that has meant they were stopped by the police. They will now have a normal trial with the normal standards of evidence, but they would not have been caught in the first place if not for this technology.

I have done quite a lot of public meetings on this. I explain, “These are the people who get caught, and the price the public pay is that you might get scanned when you walk down Croydon High Street, but if you are innocent your picture is immediately deleted.” By and large, the overwhelming majority of the people in Croydon think that a reasonable trade-off.

There should be protections, of course. Several hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, have rightly said that there should be guidelines, rules and procedures. However, it is not true that there is a complete vacuum as far as rules and regulations are concerned. The Bridges case at the Court of Appeal in 2020 looked at how South Wales police were using the technology between 2017 and 2020. It found that some of the ways they were using the technology were not appropriate because they broke rules on things like data protection privacy. It set out in case law the guidelines that have to be adhered to for the technology to be lawful—things like public signage, the rate of accuracy and having no racial bias.

Secondly—I do hope I am not taking the Minister’s entire speech—there are guidelines for police. The College of Policing has national authorised professional practice guidelines that the police are supposed to stick to. There is a debate to be had about whether, for the sake of clarity and democratic accountability, we in Parliament should set something out more formal; my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon made that point. I think there would be some merit in clarifying at a national level where the guidelines sit, but I would not go as far as Europe. If we had done so, those rapists would not have been arrested. I would also be careful to ensure that any legislation is flexible enough to accommodate changing technology. Primary legislation may not be the right vehicle: a regulation-making power might be a more sensible approach, so that things can be kept up to date from time to time.

While we consider that, I strongly urge the Minister not to halt the use of the technology. As we speak, it is arresting criminals in Croydon and elsewhere who would not otherwise be caught. I urge her to continue supporting the police to roll it out. I think some money was allocated in the Budget for the current financial year, to continue developing the technology. I would welcome an update from the Minister on whether that money is still being spent in the current financial year. I do hope it has not somehow been snaffled by the Treasury in a misguided cost-saving effort—

Violent Disorder

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Member makes an important point. There is no doubt that the swift response from the police, the prosecution and the criminal justice system had a strong impact and was clearly a deterrent and an overwhelming signal to people that if they get involved in disorder they will pay the price. The implicit point in his question is that there are long delays in the criminal justice system at the moment. We have often seen long delays in prosecutions. We are keen to work closely on that. We want to see better co-operation between policing and the Crown Prosecution Service in order to remove some of the bureaucracy that is in place and to speed up charges. We recognise there has been a lot of damage to the criminal justice system. We need to tackle that and turn it round, because that is fundamental to respect for the rule of law.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

May I just say what a powerful statement my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) made? There is no excuse for being racist or for using the innocent lives of Elsie, Alice and Bebe. I thank the Home Secretary for mentioning Cher Maximen and Mussie Imnetu. It is important that we are all mindful about how we use language in this House, especially when we are referring to immigration and migration. It is also important that we talk not only about thuggery and racism, but about Islamophobia. The rise in racism is frightening, and Love Music Hate Racism is doing a lot of work around raging against hate. I hope my right hon. Friend will help to encourage it in that work. Does she agree that we do need stronger regulations around social media companies?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s points. One of the most troubling things that we saw during those days of violent disorder was people feeling fearful to be out on the streets because of the colour of their skin. That should never happen in our country, which is why we do have to challenge racism and extremism wherever they are found. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is bringing forward measures under the Online Safety Act 2023 that will require social media companies to take action where there is criminal content. There has been considerable concern about criminal content remaining online, and we need the social media companies to take responsibility for that.

Immigration and Home Affairs

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cleverly]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; although it did not make its way through all its parliamentary stages, the proposals that we put in the Criminal Justice Bill strengthened the accountability framework for officers and strengthened police leadership to take action. Again, I hope that the Government will continue that incredibly important work, and once again I put on record my willingness to support them in ensuring that the disciplinary practices within policing give women the confidence to come forward.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

Is it not true that the net number of police is lower after 14 years of Tory Government? There has been a net loss to policing. Does the shadow Home Secretary agree that the reason we have not hit our numbers in London for the Met Police is that we are in special measures, and there needs to be caution over the police who are recruited? We need to ensure there are good police officers, so it is about quality, not just quantity.

[Mr Cleverly]

I disagree with the hon. Lady’s assessment of police numbers. That does not accord with the figures that I have seen. Police numbers are up, and we had plans to recruit even more. I get the party loyalty towards the Mayor of London, but the simple fact of the matter is that all police forces have to ensure that there are vetting procedures in place. The vetting procedures for the Metropolitan Police are no more onerous than for other forces around the country, yet many other police forces, including my own, have record numbers of police officers. The Metropolitan Police is the best-funded police force per capita in the country, and yet, with all the freedoms that the Mayor of London has and with all the money that was put on the table, he has failed to recruit the police officers that the capital city needs. That has an impact not just on people who live and work in London, but on visitors and people who travel through it.

In a constantly evolving criminal landscape, we delivered the online fraud charter. It was a world-first agreement, with 12 of the biggest tech companies as signatories, proactively to block and remove fraudulent content from their platforms. Facebook, Instagram and Amazon were among those key signatories. We introduced the National Security Act 2023 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, and we proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir, Terrorgram and the Wagner Group, to make promotion and membership of those organisations illegal.

To conclude, the right hon. Lady has a tough job. Home Secretary will always be a tough job. However, during our time in government we ensured that she has more police officers at her disposal, an effective small boats operational command, an effective immigration enforcement command and a suite of legislation to allow her to match the rhetoric of the campaign to her action in government.

The Home Secretary has inherited falling met migration figures, a growing economy and a large parliamentary majority to ensure she gets her business through the House. While we will be critical when the Government make mistakes and will seek to ensure that they do the right thing, we all have a desire for her Department to succeed and indeed an interest in its doing so. On that point, I wish her the very best of luck.

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[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes a really important point: this is about all of us, and Northern Ireland has some of the highest levels of domestic abuse murder. This issue is immensely serious, and the safeguarding Minister is already planning to have those discussions, because we should all be learning from each other about what it takes to save lives and keep people safe.

We will bring in new powers on antisocial behaviour, including new respect orders and new action on off-road bikes, which are dangerous and deafening and are being used to terrorise some communities. We will also take action against the soaring shoplifting that has seen supermarkets chain butter, cheese and fabric conditioner to the shelves, reversing the previous Conservative policy on low-value theft, and we will stand up against the appalling violence against shop workers. For years, the Co-op, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, major retailers, small shop owners and shop workers across the country have urged us to strengthen the law against assaults on shop workers, and through this King’s Speech, we will do so.

We will also increase standards in policing, including through mandatory vetting standards across forces and improvements around misconduct.

[Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)]

On the topic of mandatory vetting, does my right hon. Friend agree that we should also have psychological testing for the police? Some of the incidents that have been brought to light, such as the kidnapping and killing of Sarah Everard and the pictures taken of Bibaa and Nicole in Brent, are appalling and can only be done by people who have lost compassion in their job.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some of this is about the vetting standards before people are appointed as police officers, but some of it is about the culture that can operate within forces—or small groups within forces—that always needs to be challenged, including by leadership. We want to see national vetting standards.

Let us be clear: there are police officers who do an incredible job every day of the week to keep us all safe, while also showing immense bravery. For 14 years running, I have been to the police bravery awards to hear incredible stories of heroism, but those brave officers are badly let down—just as communities are badly let down—when other officers fail to meet those standards or when they abuse the power they have. That is why the standards and safeguarding issues are so important.

Turning to knife crime, no parent should have to lie in bed worrying that a son or daughter might not come home. One of the hardest things is to talk to parents who are grieving—who stand with a photo in a frame, because that is all they have. It is important that all our communities take action to prevent our young people from being dragged into crime and violence. The King’s Speech means new laws to get dangerous knives off the streets, such as ninja swords of the type that was used to kill 16-year-old Ronan Kanda near his home in Wolverhampton two years ago. I pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of Pooja, Ronan’s mother. We will also set up a radical new Young Futures prevention programme to stop our teenagers being drawn into a life of violent crime, bringing services together around young people in the way that the last Labour Government’s Sure Start programme did for our youngest children. It will be a programme for teenagers, to help them get back on track.

We will also bring forward new legislation on borders, security and immigration. Legal migration has trebled in the past five years; the biggest driver has been overseas recruitment, with work visas soaring because the last Government ran what was effectively a free-market, laissez-faire approach to both the economy and the immigration system. They completely failed to tackle skills shortages: areas such as engineering have been on the shortage list for decades if not generations, never having a proper programme. We have seen the number of engineering visas go up while the number of engineering apprenticeships has gone down. We have to turn that around, which is why, as well as continuing with visa controls, we will draw up new arrangements to link the points-based system with new skills plans. That is why the Education Secretary has drawn up plans for Skills England.