Young People

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, in her excellent introduction my noble friend spoke of many issues. But when you ask young people what is the biggest challenge they face, at the top of virtually every list is the lack of employment opportunities. There is a paradox here. The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, sees a country at work. However, young people looking at the job market see 10% of the workforce under- employed, 5 million underutilised and 5.8 million earning less than the living wage. They see a growing insecurity at work, with zero-hours contracts and work on IT platforms. At the same time there is a strong demand for skilled labour. That is what young people see.

I am sure the Minister will remind us of the Government’s efforts to deal with this. But manifestly they are not working. Let us take apprenticeships. We have been promised 3 million by 2020 but we know we are not going to reach that target. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, told us why. Some levy payers have been accused of spending the levy refund on training their own managers while importing workers. The Institute for Apprenticeships has tried to get more balance but studies show that poor management skills are partly responsible for our low productivity. We certainly need young people to be in management training but in addition to, not instead of, good apprenticeships.

Some employers rely on FE colleges for skills training. We have debated many times in this House how the funding for FE colleges has decreased, considerably reducing the opportunities for young people to earn and learn. Of course, the FE sector is where the young underemployed who want a second chance to train can go to learn.

Yes, the Department for Education has a skills budget and much of this work is subcontracted to the private sector. But like most public service companies, the training companies are in financial difficulties. We had a Question about this yesterday. The culture of financial survival has become more important than the culture of training young people. No wonder many of the companies that remain are graded poor by Ofsted—yet another hazard to be faced by young people.

Of course, a major contributor to this uncertainty are zero-hours contracts and platform work. By employing people outside the legal definition of “worker”, companies absolve themselves of any responsibility for training, developing skills or welfare. Eighteen months ago the Taylor report called for action on this very point; 18 months later there has been little movement. Does the Minister have any news on this?

Perhaps the Government think the answer lies in technology. Yes, online courses—or MOOCs—are well developed. I have done a couple myself and they are excellent for providing background learning, but they work far less well when you get down to the particular. It is much the same with artificial intelligence. Our own Select Committee tells us that it augments, rather than replaces, our intelligence. So we still need the computer science, maths and engineering skills, together with the creative skills. What steps are the Government taking to implement this in their future plans for young people’s transition into work?

We have to do a lot better at providing the means, the opportunities, the chances and the encouragement for young people to become good economic citizens. Indeed, this has to be central to a successful industrial strategy. I hope Ministers are working on it.