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

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Ravensdale]

11: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on green skillsSix months after the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report assessing how they plan to carry out the functions transferred to them under this Act to support development of medium- and long-term green skills needed in order contribute to—(a) the achievement of the targets set under Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008,(b) the achievement of the targets set under Sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021, and(c) the adaptation to current or predicted impacts of climate change identified in the most recent report under section 56 of the Climate Change Act 2008.”

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a chief engineer for AtkinsRéalis and as a director of Peers for the Planet.

My two amendments in this group address the two issues I raised in Committee. I will first cover the need for a duty on Skills England regarding the critical area of green skills, which is covered by Amendment 11. Given the scale of the skills needed to address the challenge of turning the UK into a clean energy superpower, and the challenging targets that we have—the national strategic goals of climate mitigation and adaptation—many Peers have been pressing for a long time to put in place a national strategy for responding to these skills needs. We had some welcome progress with the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, when the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, agreed an amendment with the Government for a climate duty on the development of local skills improvement plans.

What was missing was that overarching strategy. We all welcomed the formation of Skills England to begin plugging those gaps. I am very grateful to the Minister and her team for their collaborative approach in response to this amendment, which we raised in Committee, to include the delivery of our climate and nature targets within Skills England’s remit. Having this in the framework document for Skills England, given the constraints of the legislation, will ensure that this national strategic goal is woven into Skills England’s approach and that the good work already going on at local level through the LSIPs can be knitted together. We have had some really good feedback on the LSIPs and how they are working, but the missing piece is that integration. What the Government are doing with the framework document will help to address that. It will take things to that next step of integration, so I am very grateful to the Minister.

Amendment 12 is based on an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in Committee. I recall the noble Lord saying that we all support devolution and its goals but that we start to create joins that did not exist previously and that we have somehow to find a way of joining those bits back together, whether with a regional or sectoral approach.

The key point of the amendment is to ensure that Skills England delivers for areas without a devolution deal. This is based on my experience in the Midlands, which I set out in detail in Committee and will not repeat here. I thank the Minister and her team for committing to include within the framework document that Skills England will address those regional skills gaps. This is important for ensuring that Skills England delivers for all areas across the UK. I look forward to further detail on how that will be implemented. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, the policy is the easy bit; the implementation is the challenge.

On a related point, this highlights the importance of a regional view for skills to ensure that there is that coherent delivery of skills for key priorities. The regions are the right level to do that. In my industry, the nuclear industry, we could in the Midlands consider, for example, just what Derby needs for submarine nuclear reactors and small modular reactors. We could consider separately what West Burton needs for STEP fusion and what Birmingham needs for nuclear components. However, we can do so much more with a regionally integrated skills picture to avoid that duplication and to ensure that we share that knowledge and expertise on skills development. That is why we have set up Midlands Nuclear and the Midlands hub for nuclear skills to take that regional view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his amendments and for the conversations we have had about the reasoning behind them, which I accept. We had a meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on this issue as well. He is right to draw attention to these two very important issues, namely the crucial need to boost the availability of green skills and the need to ensure that high-quality training is available to—and designed in line with the needs of—all parts of the country.

As set out in the Invest 2035 Green Paper, published ahead of the forthcoming industrial strategy, delivering long-term sustainable growth is inextricably linked to our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. It is critical that the skills system is set up in the right way to deliver on this mission. I will return to that in a moment. Meanwhile, our English Devolution White Paper makes clear the Government’s commitment to spread growth and opportunity to all parts of the country and sets out the route to delivering much-needed change. It will not be possible to deliver on these priorities without building the evidence on the scale and nature of green skills needs in the economy and ensuring that there is a comprehensive suite of training that aligns with the identified needs and is available for people to access up and down the country. Therefore, Skills England must have a central role in driving the change that is needed on both issues the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, has highlighted. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to set out in more detail the work that Skills England will do—and indeed has already begun—in this space, and hope that this will be sufficient to persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendments.

Amendment 12 would create a duty on the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament, within six months of the passing of the Act, a report which assesses the co-ordination of local skills improvement plans, assesses the impact of the functions transferred to the Secretary of State on those parts of the country without a devolution deal and determines the scope and level of investment of the growth and skills offer in meeting national, regional and local priorities.

As set out in Skills England’s first report, working together with partners on the ground to ensure that regional and national skills needs are met is a central function of Skills England. While in shadow form, Skills England is already working closely with a range of key organisations at local and regional level to ensure that we are laying the foundations for joined-up decision-making and information sharing, which will ensure that we develop the highly skilled workforce that our economy needs in all parts of the country.

Skills England is collaborating with mayoral strategic authorities, as well as local government in areas which do not yet have devolution arrangements, to shape the delivery of skills provision. It is also working with a wide range of regional organisations, such as employer representative bodies, to help them contribute to the construction of skills systems that reflect and feed into both local and national priorities. As noble Lords have mentioned, local skills improvement plans support this objective by providing an ongoing mechanism through which local employers, strategic authorities, providers and other stakeholders come together to identify and resolve skills needs and issues. LSIPs will be overseen by Skills England, helping to ensure that all parties play their part and take action where needed, such as increased support through dedicated relationship managers.

I take the point made by both the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, that there is a complexity in the relationship between the national priority setting and action, and the regional and local environment. We have already worked on this and I commit to ensure that we work further. Skills England is clear about the way in which it will create co-ordination between those levels, particularly with respect to those areas which do not have some of the devolved arrangements that, for example, the mayoral areas have.

Our reformed growth and skills offer will enable employers to fund training that meets priority skills needs identified by Skills England, in addition to apprenticeships, recognising the importance that high-quality work-based learning has in our skills system. The new offer will be aligned with the industrial strategy, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries, such as construction, digital and green skills.

It is by drawing on evidence from, and working with partners across, the system that Skills England is developing—and will continue to develop and publish—authoritative analyses of national and local skills needs. In its first report, Driving Growth and Widening Opportunities, published last September, it provides an assessment of the key skills challenges that limit growth and opportunity, and an initial assessment of the skills needs in the economy. Building on that, Skills England will publish a further report in early 2025, providing more detailed sector-specific skills assessments and analysis of the agreed set of priority sectors defined by the industrial strategy.

Given the centrality of the local and regional dimension to Skills England’s work, the public reporting and governance arrangements I have described previously—those being a published framework document, the annual report and corporate plan—would include an assessment of its impact on delivery against these aims, including in respect of LSIPs, areas not yet covered by devolution deals and the growth and skills offer. It is for this reason that I hope that the noble Lord will feel that his amendment would duplicate the existing reporting requirements that I have outlined and is therefore unnecessary in light of those requirements.

Amendment 11 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to report on how, in their use of functions transferred to them, they are supporting the development of green skills. Extensive work to identify and address current and future green skills needs is being prioritised under this Government to ensure that the UK workforce is prepared to deliver the clean energy superpower mission. Reporting on green skills has already started, ahead of Skills England being fully established. Skills England published an initial assessment in its first report in September of last year, which included a description of the scale of the challenge and some of the key skills needs of the green economy, as well as those specific to clean energy. Skills England will build on this in its second report, which will provide sector-specific skills assessment of priority sectors, including the eight growth-driving sectors identified in the Government’s industrial strategy and those pivotal to delivering the Government’s missions, notably net zero and clean energy.

In recognition of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and acknowledging the importance of green skills and meeting necessary climate targets, I will ensure that the Skills England framework document includes specific reference to Skills England’s role in developing green skills. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has already noted that we have included that in the framework document—albeit not quite in the terminology that the noble Baroness would have wanted to see. In respect of Skills England’s local and regional work, I would also expect information on its work on green skills to be included in the annual report and corporate plan that Skills England will be required to publish, given its vital importance. The Department for Education is already required by the Environment Act 2021 to report on progress on green skills through the annual carbon budgets delivery audit.

As such, I hope the existing requirements and the commitments I have made here in respect of green skills will be sufficient to deliver on the aims of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, which I do support and have been pleased to engage with him on. For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that the noble Lord will be assured of the Government’s commitment to these vital issues and that he will therefore see fit to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say, and I am very pleased with what she said. There was a lot of reassurance on areas without a devolution deal, particularly within the reporting requirements for Skills England and how it will engage with regional and local bodies, which answered the original intent of my amendment.

We have reached an excellent compromise on green skills as well. Having the detail in the framework document —the way it has been mapped out, particularly in referencing our targets—is a really important step forward to properly integrate it with the delivery of green skills and our climate and environment targets.

I thank the Minister again for her approach and collaboration in the meetings she has undertaken with us to get to this position. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.