Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (Second sitting)

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Committee Debates: 2nd Sitting & Committee stage
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I was coming on to discuss amendment 34, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, which adds a new line to clause 1:

“lists specific strategies to support learners who have or have previously had, a statement of Special Educational Need or an Education and Health Care Plan into employment, including but not limited to provision for supported internships.”

Supported internships have huge potential. I saw an excellent example when I visited Derbyshire Education Business Partnership, which serves my constituency of Chesterfield, and witnessed its supported internship programme in Derby at first hand. Supported internships are incredibly important in supporting people who may be further away from the labour market, but they currently have a tiny take-up. Everything that can be done to drive up the number of supported internships should be done. They support people who might not be ready to go into the world of work right away but who, with the benefit of a programme like this, can get to know an employer really well; the employer can get to know their strengths as well as their challenges, and they can get into the world of work.

We tabled amendment 34 not only to encourage the Government to insist that strategies for those with special educational needs are expressly considered in local skills improvement plans, but to talk specifically about supported internships, which would make a real difference. Many of us are concerned that chambers of commerce and employers, who are experts in the needs of their workplaces and what skills they need, will not necessarily be aware of the challenges faced by those who are furthest from the labour market. They might be less likely to have strategies of that kind in LSIPs. However, if colleges had a more central role in the plans, chambers of commerce and employers would absolutely recognise the need for programmes of this sort.

I share the belief of my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, and many others who put their names to the amendments, that employer representative bodies should have the required training, knowledge and understanding of the educational and health needs of people with disabilities in general and of how people with disabilities can best be supported within a local area in particular. I hope that, when he responds to this group of amendments, the Minister will commit to ensuring that people with disabilities are not forgotten in the Bill, and signal that the Government have specific strategies to ensure that employer bodies have a duty to represent the needs of people with disabilities and support them into the workplace, so that they are not excluded any more.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I rise to speak in favour of amendments 27 and 28 in my name, and amendments 1, 2 and 3, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. I want highlight that the Library briefing on the Bill states that 18% of the learners currently in the FE and skills sector have a recognised learning difficulty or disability. When we talk about people with disabilities, we are not talking about a very small minority; we are talking about 18% of those people. The amendments that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham have tabled are very similar. They all basically try to do the same thing: to ensure that the voices of disabled people are heard and recognised in the Bill. They also address the disability employment gap. Mr Efford, I should have mentioned that I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on SEND, which is where a lot of my interest comes from. I know from the work of the APPG and on the amendments that there is a lot of cross-party support for these measures, which we also saw in the Lords. This is not a party political issue. I hope the Minister takes it seriously.

Recent figures show that disabled people have an employment rate that is 28.4 percentage points lower than people who are not disabled. There is a huge disability employment gap and the amendments hope to address that. I recognise that the issue is complex and that there are a number of Government initiatives to address it, but it would be a missed opportunity not to use the Bill and the new process of skills planning that it brings about to help ensure that people with disabilities can contribute to their local economy and that their voices are heard in the discussion of what that local economy should look like. All too often, people with disabilities feel that their voices are not heard. The amendments aim to ensure they are listened to and recognised, and that some action is taken on the disability employment gap. That is the aim of all the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I welcome you to your place, Mr Efford. I want to lend my support to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle and others on this group of amendments. They seek to ensure that the LSIPs take the needs of disabled people and those with special educational needs into account.

Currently, further education caters for a large number of students with such needs, which can be complex. The latest data shows that roughly half of disabled people are in employment—just 53%—compared with just over four out of five non-disabled people. The employment rate for disabled people with severe or specific learning difficulties was 18% back in 2019, the lowest rate of any impairment group. The House of Commons Library briefing notes that 52% of disabled people were in employment, down from 54%, which is really concerning.

The Workers Educational Association notes that

“adult learners in community provision are those with low or no qualifications, who require the most support in order to progress to higher level qualifications.”

Learning disabilities add to that complex state of affairs, which justifies the inclusion of an amendment to provide more support for people with learning disabilities. In its evidence to the Committee, Engineering UK said:

“38% of respondents…reported a lack of role models to be a barrier for pupils with special educational needs”.

One of the employers in my region, the National Grid, is doing extraordinary stuff in engaging and giving work opportunities to young people with complex needs, through its EmployAbility scheme. It is an exemplar project that it has been running for several years.

Those are some of the reasons why the amendments are important to the Bill. The Government’s impact assessment says that those from SEND backgrounds are “disproportionately” likely to be affected, and it is therefore a cruelty not to legislate where possible to mitigate that disproportionate impact. We think it is vital that such provisions be written into the Bill, which is why the amendments have been tabled. We need to highlight the challenges and make sure that we are as inclusive a society as possible, and that we allow for the needs of people with SEND in skills provisions.

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[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is absolutely right; something I will come on to in a moment is that when we help young people with special educational needs overcome the barriers to employment, and when we help employers overcome some of the barriers that they may feel exist to employing those young people, it is an extraordinarily mutually beneficial relationship.

[Emma Hardy]

I want to push the Minister a little more on the guidance. He has mentioned that it will be statutory, which I welcome, but I wonder whether it will include some of the wording that is in this amendment, which looks specifically at what action will be taken to reduce the disability employment gap. Will that be seen in the statutory guidance?

[Alex Burghart]

Obviously, we are very keen to reduce the disability employment gap, and we are always mindful of ways in which we can achieve that. I am sure that it will be in the Secretary of State’s mind when he considers the statutory guidance.

Local skills improvement plans are not the only solution to this issue. Colleges already have a duty to use their best endeavours to secure the special educational provision called for by a student with special educational needs, as set out in the SEND code of practice. That should include a focus on preparing the young person for adulthood, including employment.

In addition to the duties on providers in relation to LSIPs, clause 5 introduces a broader duty for colleges and designated institutions to review how well their whole curriculum offer meets local needs. The duty requires governing bodies to consider the needs of all learners, including current and future learners, and those with special educational needs or a disability.

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[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Government are also developing an adjustments passport that aims to smooth the transition into employment and support people changing jobs, including people with special educational needs and disabilities. That goes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich made. When I was on the Work and Pensions Committee with the great Frank Field, that was exactly the sort of thing that we were calling for. I am very pleased that this Administration have seen it go out.

The 12-month pilots of the adjustments passport that are under way in HE and post-16 provider pilot sites are capturing the in-work support needs of the individual and we hope that they will empower individuals to have confident discussions about adjustments with employers. It goes back to my point about breaking down barriers both for the individual and for the employer. More broadly, the Government’s national disability strategy sets out how we will help disabled people to fulfil their potential through work, to help reduce the disability employment gap further.

[Emma Hardy]

With respect to the comments made by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, if everything were all fine and dandy as it is, we would not have a 28 percentage points disability employment gap. The Minister talks about the statutory guidance. Will there be some sticks as well as carrots in the guidance? If employers and people do not feel that they are being represented, and they are not taking effective measures to deal with the disability employment gap, will there be sanctions?

[Alex Burghart]

As I said in the previous sitting, statutory guidance is a powerful tool. If employer representative bodies do not adhere to statutory guidance, they may lose their designation. That is in the essence of statutory guidance. Given the significant amount of work already under way in this space, we do not believe that the amendments are necessary, but we agree with the direction in which they push.

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[Mr Perkins]

I will go through these amendments relatively briefly. Amendment 33 is a probing amendment on the subject of the role of local enterprise partnerships and skills productivity boards. As I said at the start of this debate, those of us who were here in 2010 heard a huge amount from the Government about the role of LEPs. We have subsequently heard about the roles of SPBs, and they both sounded very similar in expectation to what we are now hearing, on a local level, for employer representative bodies.

It therefore strikes me that the Government do not have a great deal of confidence in the LEPs that they created, nor in the SPBs. If I was a chief executive of a LEP, I do not think I would be taking up any credit agreements right now. They must be looking at this Bill and wondering what the future holds for them.

I am interested in the Government’s response to this. Why is it that local enterprise partnerships, which—as we will all remember—were put forward as the way for business and Government to work together on a local basis on a variety of measures to drive economic growth, particularly around skills, are now seen as entirely superfluous in this Bill? Is this the beginning of the end of local enterprise partnerships?

I am interested in whether the Minister feels there should be a duty for employer representative bodies to work in collaboration with them, and what this says about the future of those organisations. Does he accept that it is a failure of Government policy to have set up these organisations that now appear to be being ignored at a time when there is a function that we would naturally think would fall to them?

Amendment 38 relates to designated distance learning. If the covid crisis has taught us anything, it is that more and more has gone online. In the skills arena in particular, that has been hugely transformational for the sector and for many learners. It creates opportunities that were not there previously. We are very concerned that designated distance learning is absent from the Bill, and that is why we have tabled amendment 38. Again, we are keen to hear the Government’s view on that.

Amendment 39 is about Government Departments working together; I think we have all been conscious, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish said previously, that that is not a particular strength of this Government. We saw that more than ever during the covid crisis when, on the one hand, there was a real lack of strategy around increasing apprenticeships at a time when we knew there was a boom in youth unemployment and, on the other hand, we had the Department for Work and Pensions introducing the kickstart scheme, which was much more expensive than apprenticeships and offered much less to young people. There was no sense that the different Government Departments were working together.

Our amendment would require the Government and any future Government to have a national strategy for education and skills that is agreed across the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and of which all local skills improvement plans would have to take account. Our particular concern is the lack of cross-departmental work between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education; that is something the Labour party takes very seriously, and there have been regular meetings between teams to work on that whole area.

Amendment 40 asks the Government to publish guidance setting out the criteria used to determine the boundaries of a specified area. There is a real lack of clarity about what is meant by “local area”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle referred to, in different parts of our forms of local government. What is our local area keeps changing. Again, that is not specified within the Bill and I think there will be real concern that we now have this document, which is of tremendous importance to an FE college; it could be the reason why a chief executive loses their job—

[Emma Hardy]

rose—

[Mr Perkins]

On that rather foreboding note, I will give way.

[Emma Hardy]

I mentioned to the Minister before that I have a lot of sympathy for the Government trying to work out what constitutes a local area. I was talking to a local Conservative MP and we were having a bit of a laugh about it ourselves, because in our area we have Humberside Police, Humberside Fire & Rescue Service and a police and crime commissioner for Humberside, but then we have the Hull and East Yorkshire LEP, and the regional schools commissioner, who has a different geographical area from the LEP, which has a different geographical area from the area that Ofsted covers. Apparently, they are creating a pan-Humber organisation, after the LEP was removed, to look at skills in the area. Good luck to the Minister in trying to work out what exactly the local area looks like, because it is incredibly complicated when we have a myriad different organisations with different geographical boundaries.

[Mr Perkins]

I think we are all dying to know who this Conservative Member of Parliament was—I have a suspicion who it may have been. My hon. Friend makes a really important point. If it is, “Good luck to the Minister”, more importantly, it is “Good luck to employers” in actually working out where they should go, which area they are a part of and which local skills improvement plan is responsible for them if they have two sites that are 10 miles apart and there are different providers they have to engage with. This is something that puts businesses off engaging in this kind of skills arena. We have seen it with apprenticeships and the barriers that have been put in the way for businesses to take up apprentices; making it difficult for businesses to engage guarantees that they will not do so. That is a really important point and it is why we have moved this probing amendment.

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[Mr Perkins]

As I said previously, we support the principle of local skills improvement plans. Having something that everyone understands is of real value. We are not saying that there should not be any localisation. This is a probing amendment to help us understand. Colleges tend to have a specified area. The Government decided that the local enterprise partnerships would all have their own area. We cannot be, as we used to be in Chesterfield, across two different local enterprise partnerships. We are in one area. The Government have attempted to put firm lines around it, but it has been made slightly more fuzzy.

[Emma Hardy]

I think the hon. Member for Great Grimsby has misunderstood. When creating a local skills plan, we need to define a local area. As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, whose constituency is opposite mine on the south bank, will be fully aware, the chamber of commerce is actually a pan-Humber organisation, but the LEPs are separate organisations. I am pointing out to the Minister that, if we are looking at creating a local skills plan for a local area, quite obviously we need to work out what that local area is.

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend puts it very well.

Amendment 41 asks the Secretary of State to publish guidance relating to implementation, subject to consultation with the metro Mayor or relevant local authority. Under the terms of the Bill, the Secretary of State has the potential to amass new powers, which could be used without appropriate consultation or due diligence. We can see the hand of the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) right through the Bill. I am confident that if the Bill had been devised when the current Secretary of State had been in place for a year or two, it would look very different. The sense of a man who had lost control and was desperately trying to get back control runs right through the Bill.

Our amendments seek to establish a clear duty for the Secretary of State to consult with combined and local authorities before local skills improvement plans are finalised in areas that do not have metro Mayors, ensuring that the relevant local representative bodies are part of the formation of a board. It is about bringing together the various different organisations that would make up a strategic approach to skills. We are saying that, if there is not an employer representative body that is able to broadly represent private and public sector employers, further education colleges, independent training providers and such, the Government should appoint a board made up of those in order to deliver that local skills improvement plan, rather than the current approach, which is just a single body. Amendment 44 says that colleges and other providers

“may propose revisions where they consider that the plans do not appropriately reflect the full diversity of priorities across the locality.”

I am keen to hear the Minister’s response to the amendments.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely, and the same is true even at the level below that, within a city region. I can speak with experience about my own city region, where there are divergent trends between those living in the north of Greater Manchester, where there are fewer opportunities, and those living in the so-called arc of prosperity around south Manchester. We need to finely tune our local skills strategies to reflect the different make-ups of particular areas.

Talking about how we define areas, I think amendment 40 matters. We are talking about defining “local” which matters for several reasons. First, I am a bit of an obsessive compulsive disorder neurotic and I like things to be neat and tidy. For clarity of purpose, it makes sense to have coterminosity, wherever possible, with other organisations and bodies.

Again, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, I am lucky that my local enterprise partnership, my chamber of commerce, my combined authority and all 10 local councils in Greater Manchester all cover the same boundaries.

[Emma Hardy]

So lucky.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Things get a little bit messy. I was nervous when my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington mentioned health trusts, because my own health trust, Tameside and Glossop, crosses the county boundary, although that will be sorted out by the Bill currently going through Parliament. That is the only bit of non-coterminosity I have.

These boundaries matter because if we draw up strategies, plans and proposals, and we want to collaborate with business, education providers, local government and the wider public sector, then we have to have a defined set of boundaries. The closer those boundaries match, the easier it will be to get a strategy in place.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

Boundaries matter. I say that as a patron of the Friends of Real Lancashire.

Coming back to amendment 40, the cleaner these boundaries can be, the better. I get that local economies can spread across artificial local government boundaries. I know that because just down the road from where I live is Glossop, in the High Peak in Derbyshire. To all intents and purposes, Glossop is a Greater Manchester town. It looks to Greater Manchester, all its transport links are into Manchester and its healthcare is currently part of Greater Manchester. I get that there is always going to be a degree of “This boundary does not work,” but if we are looking at a particular strategy and then having to engage with a whole range of public bodies in developing and signing off that strategy, it gets overly complicated if we end up having a mismatch of different boundaries, in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has already described.

[Emma Hardy]

To return to the conversation we were having about SEND and disabilities, and the disability employment gap, we will have to collect data to know whether the skills plan is delivering on its objectives and addressing the disability employment gap, so we will need some kind of boundary or defined area from which to collect that data. The Minister said that the guidance would include information on the disability employment gap, but unless there is a boundary, we cannot accurately collect data and we cannot judge whether the plan is a success.

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[Alex Burghart]

I rise to speak to amendments 33, 38 to 41, and 44. I will start with amendments 33 and 38 in the names of the hon. Members for Chesterfield and for Warwick and Leamington.

Amendment 33 would require that local skills improvement plans draw on the views of local enterprise partnerships and the Skills and Productivity Board. We have been clear that local skills improvement plans should be informed by the work of the national Skills and Productivity Board and build on the work of local enterprise partnerships and their skills advisory panels. We will reiterate that in statutory guidance.

[Emma Hardy]

This is a quick one on statutory guidance. To clarify, will that statutory guidance state “act in accordance with” or “have regard to”? We all know that statutory guidance that states “have regard to” means “read and ignore.”

[Alex Burghart]

I am horrified to hear the hon. Lady’s attitude to statutory guidance. Our intention will be set out in statutory guidance, so that local skills improvement plans will be informed by the work of the national Skills and Productivity Board and build on the work of local enterprise partnerships and their skills advisory panels.

[Alex Burghart]

We have been clear that we want to have an approach that is completely employer-led. Local enterprise partnerships, which have much to recommend them, are partially informed by employers, but they are public-private partnerships and we want an employer-led process.

Amendment 38 relates to local skills improvement plans taking account of providers of distance learning. I very much acknowledge the remarks made by Opposition Members about the importance of distance learning and how valuable it is to many members of the public who are studying. All relevant providers that provide English-funded post-16 technical education or training that is material to a specified area will have a duty to co-operate with the designated employer representative body for that area in developing a plan. That will be true even if they are based elsewhere and offer the provision by distance or online learning. That will help to ensure that the views of distance learning providers are taken into account.

Amendment 39, tabled by the hon. Members for Chesterfield and for Warwick and Leamington, would require the Government to have a national strategy for education skills that is agreed across DFE, DWP, BEIS and DLUHC, and of which LSIPs would have to take account. The Government have already set out their strategy for skills reform in the “Skills for jobs” White Paper published in January last year, which was agreed by all Departments—not just the ones listed in the amendment. The proposals set out the aim to support people to develop the skills that they need to get good jobs. They form the basis of the legislation we are discussing.

On the local skills improvement plans, we have been clear that they should take account of the relevant national strategies and priorities related to skills, as well as being informed by the work of the national Skills and Productivity Board. The specific strategies and priorities will evolve and change over time. We think the best place to do that is in statutory guidance.

Amendment 40, tabled by the hon. Members for Chesterfield and for Warwick and Leamington, relates to the publication of guidance setting out the criteria used to determine a specific area. The specified areas for local skills improvement plans will be based on functional economic areas. The Government are working with local enterprise partnerships to refine the role of business engagement in local economic strategy, including skills, and to ensure that the structures are fit for purpose for the future. That includes looking at geographies—

[Emma Hardy]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I am sure that the Secretary of State, as he engages in the process, will be mindful of the muddle that is Hull and, indeed, mindful of the many economic areas in which hon. Members find their constituencies.

[Emma Hardy]

I want to clarify that, whatever boundary it might be, defined boundaries will be set. If we do not set a defined boundary of any type, I cannot see how it will be possible to collect the data and the intelligence to know whether a strategy is working.

[Alex Burghart]

We are clear that these will be based on functional economic areas, that they will have a defined geography and that we will ensure that no part of the country is left out.

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[Emma Hardy]

I know I am not intervening on the Minister, but I wonder whether a proposed map of the different areas will be put out for consultation before they are agreed and set by Government, and whether there will be an opportunity for local people to influence what the geographical areas will be.

[Mr Perkins]

It is the boundaries nightmare all over again. The Minister will have heard my hon. Friend’s question, and I am sure that he and his officers will think carefully on it. Again, we will put only one amendment in this group to a vote. We will not press amendment 44, but we will divide the Committee on amendment 41. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 1, in clause 1, page 3, line 6, after “evidence” insert

“, including the views of relevant community groups including those representing the interests of disabled people,”.—(Mr Perkins.)

This amendment intends to ensure that the evidence informing LSIP development includes information directly relevant to improving the employment prospects of disabled people.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Mr Perkins]

We appear to have raced on to clause 2. Amendment 35 is important, because so much of the Government’s narrative makes it clear that when they talk about employers, they really mean private sector employers. There are huge skills shortages within the public sector. The public sector is an important employer, and it is of particular importance in some of the most deprived communities. Labour’s approach to the Bill will be about asking the Government to place employers and those responsible for education at the heart of a skills strategy.

It is essential that employers in the public sector, including those in health and social care, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington mentioned, be consulted in the formation of local skills improvement plans. Employer representative bodies must ensure that LSIPs fully reflect both private and public sector employers.

Amendment 45 is a probing amendment designed to test how the Secretary of State will determine what mix of employers is considered “reasonably representative”. The Bill refers to the Secretary of State being

“satisfied that…the body is reasonably representative”.

I think it would be interesting to define what exactly is a reasonably representative mix of employers on LSIPs. It is highly likely that chambers of commerce will be the employer representative body by default in most LSIP areas. We have had representations from organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, which has concerns about the powers to be handed to those chambers.

The Minister has said that ERBs that are not performing could be sacked and potentially replaced, but there are not numerous organisations that have the capacity to undertake that kind of work. Indeed, there is some question over whether many chambers of commerce will immediately have that capacity, but they will have the responsibility either way. As has been said, some areas have an active and vibrant chamber of commerce, and our proposals should not be viewed as being hostile to them. There are many excellent professionals in chambers of commerce and many really excellent chambers that make an incredibly important contribution to our local economies and to skills. However, it is important to recognise that membership and attendance can vary greatly within localities. The priorities of some chambers can be dominated by a small number of particularly loud voices. It is important that there are safeguards to ensure that any ERB is representative. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance that that will be the case and that ERBs will consult widely in the formation of the LSIP.

What mechanisms are in place should the Secretary of State consider that an ERB is not representative? What mechanisms are in place to deal with complaints from others, such as further education colleges, which may consider that an ERB is not representative?

[Emma Hardy]

Much as I hate to return to the boundary issue, our local chamber of commerce is the Humber-based chamber, which may not end up being the geographical area represented by the skills body. To return to small and medium-sized enterprises, and the concerns of the Federation of Small Businesses to which my hon. Friend referred, in areas where most employment comes from SMEs or the public sector, how can we ensure that they are heard when the skills plan is developed?

[Mr Perkins]

That is a really important point. In some cases, chambers of commerce and branches of the Federation of Small Businesses have constructive relationships; in other areas the relationship is less constructive. To place the role of one above the other in respect of an ERB is potentially exclusive.

Amendment 36 would add local further education colleges, independent training providers, local authorities, including mayoral combined authorities, and local enterprise partnerships to those of which employer representative bodies must be representative to be designated as a representative body by the Secretary of State. We are seeking to ensure that colleges, independent training providers, local authorities and LEPs are not shut out of LSIPs and that all form part of the consultation when LSIPs are drafted by ERBs.

Amendment 46 seeks to ensure that ERBs include a wider range of local employer interests, including SMEs, the self-employed, sole trader businesses, and public and third sector employers. In some sectors such as construction, a huge number of those responsible for ensuring that a new generation of people come into the sector are self-employed or sole traders. Historically, they would just have taken on a young apprentice to work with them; they will now potentially be excluded from doing that. We have seen the danger in the way the apprenticeship levy was introduced. Big business was very much in mind when it was introduced, and the way it was designed has massively reduced the number of small businesses offering apprenticeships.

There is a danger of SMEs being excluded from the measures in the clause, particularly in smaller town communities where there are not the major employers that there are in larger cities. We are really concerned that SMEs, alongside charities, community organisations and others, will be excluded from the decision-making process in the formation of LSIPs. Amendment 46 would ensure a role for them, alongside the self-employed, in the drafting of LSIPs.

Amendment 37 moves towards the heart of what a Labour local skills improvement plan would look like. The other amendments attempt to ensure that there is proper consultation by the employer representative body. Given that the Bill gives wide-ranging, undetermined powers to the Secretary of State, we want to ensure that local enterprise partnerships and metro Mayors have their role in local decision making enshrined in the Bill. Amendment 37 therefore proposes that, if no suitable employer representative body is found that can represent all aspects, the Secretary of State be required to set up a board in that area, which would have wider representation from organisations like FE colleges, metro Mayors and local authorities.

[Emma Hardy]

I recall the Minister saying that the Secretary of State will have the power to take control from chambers of commerce if they are seen not to be working properly. I wonder whether the Minister would seriously consider our amendment as a model they could use. If there is only one chamber in the area, and that chamber loses control or oversight, who are we going to use instead? Does the Minister anticipate that there will be some form of inspection to check the competency of chambers? Will there be key performance indicators, or some way of flagging whether the chamber is successful or deemed to be failing?

[Mr Perkins]

Those are all important questions. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are significant warnings to employer representative bodies in the Bill about failing to satisfy the Secretary of State. In the event that they are dismissed, as the Bill makes clear may happen, who is responsible for the local skills improvement plan after that? Many Members have said that some chambers are really strong, others have different strengths and others are not so strong. Putting all our eggs in one basket, which the Bill pretty much does in the vast majority of geographies, is a cause for concern.

Amendment 42 would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult and seek consent from local authorities and combined authorities on the formation of employer representative bodies. Given that ERBs will be responsible for the formation of LSIPs, which will have budgetary commitments, it is vital that they have the confidence of local authorities and combined authorities, and that organisations are working in collaboration rather than in opposition, as we have said time and again would be the Labour approach.

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It is also important to future-proof the strategies. If the Secretary of State sees the local chamber of commerce as failing in its duty with regard to the strategy, there must be a plan B. Who takes over responsibility for the strategy? It makes perfect sense for that to be the metro Mayor or local government.

[Emma Hardy]

I hope that when the Minister responds, he defines whether there is going to be a transparent judgment or transparent criteria. Will the criteria be judged and evaluated? Who will do that judgment and evaluation to determine whether a chamber has failed? It surely cannot be at the whim of the current Secretary of State, whoever that may be, to decide whether a chamber is seen as successful or failing.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is right. There has to be a fair arbitration process as well, because it may well be that the chamber of commerce does not agree that it is failing, in which case we will have a problem in trying to resolve the matter. I do not want to focus on possible failure, but we have to legislate for it, just in case. I want each and every one of these bodies to be a success but if, for whatever reason, one is not, we must know what the mechanisms are to ensure that the skills strategy for a given geographical area is carried on and made successful. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield’s amendment seeks to get that information from Ministers on what happens if, for whatever reason, things go wrong.

Lastly, I come back to the issue of how boundaries matter. If, for whatever reason, the boundaries for the skills strategy are different from those of whoever takes over that responsibility in the event of the chamber of commerce failing, we need to make sure that it is clear that the replacement covers the same area as what went before it.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Efford. I rise to support amendments 35, 45, 36 and 46, which were well presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield. It is particularly important to reflect the points well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish about public and private employers. Much has been said about the potential for formulating the employer representative body from the chamber of commerce. The clue is in the name: it is about commerce and business, as much as employers.

That leads me on to the bit in between: our strong and vibrant voluntary sector. Recently, we have seen the greater rise of commissioning over many years by many public sector organisations. They have had 10 years of cuts, to be frank, so they have thought of innovative ways to deliver what I believe to be public services still. They have commissioned the voluntary sector, and it is vital for the voluntary sector—as suggested by amendment 46 —to have a seat on that employer representative body, whether as a collective in an overarching grouping or as key individual employers in the designated area, whatever it might be. Equally, we must ensure an interrelationship with other significant public sector bodies—put well by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. Not being explicit is not recognising what the employment market looks like.

[Emma Hardy]

When the Government design the LSIP areas, I wonder whether it would be helpful to produce some data on the respective public-private employer difference in each area. Each area will look different, so I imagine that the employer representatives would be reflective of that particular labour market.

[Rachel Hopkins]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Exactly that—this is an employer representative body. The Bill must be open and explicit about ensuring that the public and voluntary sectors, and others—small businesses, the self-employed—have a seat at the table, through whatever mechanism. It is for them to outline how they wish to do that, but perhaps through something like the Federation of Small Businesses. I think that is vital, because otherwise it just gets lost in the grain. If the measure is to be a success in pushing forward on the skills agenda, we need to be explicit about who is at the table, who is shaping the plans and which areas. I hope that the Minister addresses my comments in his response.