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

Janet Daby Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)]

I thank hon. Members for their constructive engagement throughout the debate. However, from listening to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), one would think that this was all doom and gloom, when it is actually a new season of growth and skills. We are springing into action, and I encourage him not to be stuck in the past.

As I have said before, including when we discussed the Bill in detail in Committee, it is wonderful to hear the passion that Members from across the House have for improving our skills system. It is clear that we all share a desire to better meet the skill needs of employers and learners. The Government are determined to unlock growth and spread opportunity, and the Bill will help us to deliver the change that we absolutely need.

I will start by speaking to new clause 1 before touching on the other new clauses and amendments.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Can the Minister explain, in answer to the points made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and others, the rationale behind eliminating level 7 apprenticeships?

[Janet Daby]

Information on that will come out in due course, but if the right hon. Member gives me a little more time, I will be able to elaborate and respond to Members as I go.

New clauses 1 and 4 relate to the creation of Skills England and its legal status. New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), would require the Secretary of State to lay draft proposals for a new Executive agency, to be known as Skills England, within six months of Royal Assent. New clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, would require the Secretary of State to establish Skills England as a statutory body.

Our position—that we establish Skills England as an Executive agency—remains extremely clear and is entirely in keeping with the usual process for establishing arm’s length bodies. The Department is complying with the robust and vigorous process for establishing Executive agencies, which applies across Government. The Executive agency model balances operational independence with proximity to Government. That is needed to inform policy and support delivery of the Government’s mission. That model enables us to move quickly, which is vital given the scale and urgency of the skills challenges that we face.

The Government have committed to reviewing Skills England between 18 and 24 months after it is set up. That will includes an assessment of whether the Executive agency model is enabling Skills England to deliver its objectives. That is consistent with good practice. Skills will power this mission-driven Government and our plan for change. Our approach means that we can get on with the job at hand: fixing the skills system and helping more people to get the training they need to build our homes, power our towns and cities with clean energy, and master new digital technologies.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for visiting the best town in England, Harlow, last week. Does she agree that this Bill will help benefit young people in my constituency and give them the skills that they need ?

[Janet Daby]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the Bill will help young people to gain the skills that they need—in his wonderful constituency and in many other wonderful constituencies as well.

Amendment 6 tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston would frustrate the complete establishment of Skills England by delaying the transfer for a full year of the functions as set out in the Bill. Members have heard the Government set out already that delay is not an option; that has been repeatedly said. They should not just take my word for it: technology training provider QA has said that this is a pivotal moment for shaping the skills system to meet the UK’s industrial and economic needs, and it is right. The complex and fragmented nature of the skills system is contributing to critical skills gaps in our economy today: opportunities are being missed today, growth is being held back by a lack of skills today, and we cannot afford to be sluggish in our pursuit of a more joined up, data-driven approach.

In the first set of apprenticeship statistics under the new Labour Government we saw an increase in starts, participation and achievement compared with the same period under the Tories in 2023, even in the constituency of the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. When the Conservatives were in government, starts in his constituency fell by 13%; almost 100 fewer people were starting apprenticeships on their watch. This Government marked National Apprenticeship Week with a set of reforms going further and faster on growth, whereas under his Government a third of vacancies were due to the lack of skills. We will press on.

The British Chambers of Commerce has urged us to work at pace to establish Skills England, and we are doing exactly that. Since being set up in shadow form, Skills England has got to work. It has got to work by identifying skills gaps in the economy and building relationships with strategic authorities, employers and other groups. Indeed, Skills England has worked with mayoral, strategic authorities and other forms of regional government as well as regional organisations to ensure that regional and national skills needs are met in line with the forthcoming industrial strategy. Skills England will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council so that we have the skilled workforce needed to deliver a clear long-term plan for the future economy, and with the Migration Advisory Committee to ensure that growing the domestic skills pipeline reduces our reliance on overseas workers. Our constituents will not thank us for sticking in the slow lane. There is no need to wait another year, and we are ready to go now.

New clauses 2 and 3 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston respectively would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to publish within one year of Royal Assent reports on the impact of the Act on T-levels and higher education. Members will be aware that we have already included in the Bill a duty for the Secretary of State to report on functions transferred from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education that will be exercised by Skills England, including their impact on technical education and apprenticeships. This report will need to be published not after a year but after six months, which is much sooner. We have therefore already made commitments to transparency in the Bill, and that was welcomed by stakeholders, including the Association of Colleges in its written evidence to the Bill Committee. We all agree that T-levels and higher education are central to fixing our skills challenges and, as I made clear in Committee, the Skills England six-month report will include necessary information on T-levels as well as technical education and apprenticeships delivered in higher education settings. The Conservative party has argued that we must avoid Skills England being overlooked and distracted from its important work. Surely, then, we should avoid forcing it to spend its first year producing more and more reports covering the same issues.

Amendments 1 and 2 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston respectively. These amendments would also place additional reporting requirements on the Secretary of State, this time in relation to degree apprenticeships. As with T-levels and higher education, the report that the Government have committed to providing after six months will necessarily include information on apprenticeships, including degree apprenticeships. Amendment 1 is about funding for those apprenticeships. We are setting Skills England up to build the evidence and the partnerships needed to deliver change, but policy and funding decisions on skills provisions will not sit with Skills England; they will continue to sit with the Secretary of State. That is entirely right and appropriate, and nothing in the Bill changes that. We will set out more information on level 7 apprenticeships in due course.

[Gareth Snell]

If I have heard the Minister right, the first report that will come out will include aspects of the implications for higher-degree apprenticeships, but the funding decisions will still sit with the Department, as they should. Will the report refer to the funding decisions made by the Secretary of State, so that when it comes to the impact of the decisions made, we can see correlation and causation?

[Janet Daby]

I absolutely hear my hon. Friend and his concern for level 7. I do not want to stray too far from the Bill and what it seeks to achieve, but I am very happy to look at that further with him, and to get back to him.

On Sunday, it will be eight years since the levy was introduced, and only now, under a Labour Government, are employers getting the flexibilities they have been crying out for, including on maths and English, and on the length of apprenticeships. That is in response to industry needs, and recognises the needs of jobs, and the need to get young people a foot in the door, so that they can start good careers. After nine months in government, this Labour Government have cut through red tape and are driving the skills that our employers need, showing that Labour is the party of business. We are reforming apprenticeships, tilting the system towards young people most in need of developing skills, and ensuring that young people get a foot on the careers ladder.

Amendments 3 and 5 were again tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. They would create a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to have due regard to the reasonable requirements of employers and individuals when considering whether to approve a standard or assessment plan where it has been developed by a group of persons. As I made clear in my response to the hon. Member in Committee, the Secretary of State is already subject to a general public law duty that requires them to take into account all relevant considerations when making decisions relating to the functions for which they are responsible. There is therefore already a requirement for the Secretary of State to balance the needs of users of the system when executing the functions described in the Bill. In fact, the public law duty is broader than the factors listed in the amendments and includes, for example, consideration of value for money and quality.

Turning lastly to amendment 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, it is critical that technical qualifications and apprenticeships reflect the needs of employers, and that they have confidence in them. Employers tell us that speed and flexibility are crucial if we are to work together more effectively to plug skills gaps. The precise make-up of “a group of persons” is not currently mandated in legislation. Flexibility is necessary to ensure that the membership of every group reflects the factors relevant to an occupation. Specifying in the Bill that a group must always include a particular voice would introduce new and unnecessary constraints on the structure of groups.

To conclude, this Government are committed to transforming the skills system so that it can deliver the highly skilled workforce that our country needs. Skills will power this Government’s relentless focus on delivering our mission. That is why this Government’s first piece of educational legislation paves the way for Skills England to identify and fill skills gaps.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

We are on a mission to deliver strong and sustainable economic growth and to break down the barriers to opportunity. Skills will power this mission-driven Government and our plan for change.

I thank Members across the House for their contributions. I especially thank members of the Bill Committee for their scrutiny; the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) for chairing the Committee; and my hon. Friends the Members for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) and for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft) for their crucial work in guiding the Bill through Committee and the other House of Commons stages.

The Bill has benefited from scrutiny both in this House and in the other place. I welcome the broad support for the creation of Skills England and its work. It is clear that we are united in our recognition of the need to develop a world-leading approach to skills. It is vital if we are to build the highly skilled workforce that we need to meet today’s challenges and grasp tomorrow’s opportunities.

We need skills to get Britain building; we need skills to deliver energy security; and we need skills to advance AI and increase productivity. We need to improve the quality and availability of training to give people from all backgrounds from across the country the power to seize opportunities and improve their lives and their family’s lives. That is why this Labour Government’s very first piece of education legislation will pave the way for Skills England.

According to employers, over one third of vacancies in 2022 were due to skills shortages. This must change. We need to move fast to identify and plug skills gaps in the economy. The Bill is a crucial step in delivering this change. Skills England will combine for the first time insight into skills gaps with the development of technical education to meet the gaps, and the network will ensure that skills needs can be tackled across the country. Skills England is already making a difference. It is changing the way skills gaps are identified and how key organisations are working together to fill them.

This Government are ready to go. As soon as the Bill passes, Skills England stands ready to take forward its work as a strong, coherent, single organisation. Delay is not an option. We must act and we will act. We are acting now. I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.