Skills for Jobs White Paper

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct about the importance of modern languages, which is why they are part of the English baccalaureate and why we have given £4.8 million to fund the modern foreign language pedagogy pilot, which is looking at the attainment of languages at levels 3 and 4. However, I suggest to the noble Baroness that, when employers are leading on the local skills improvement plans, if the employers in a region say, “Actually, what we need in addition to that technical skill is a language—for instance, Polish or any other language”, it is open to them to say, “This is a skill that we need in the local area.” Then, as I have said, the strategic development funds will help the colleges to have the content of courses to match that skills improvement fund. If employers need those skills, we hope to see the need for foreign languages coming in as part of many higher technical qualifications and integrate it in that way. I invite the noble Baroness to make sure that employers are doing that as these plans are developed.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s White Paper but I share some of the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Bassam. Implementing many of the Augar report’s recommendations is important, although personally I think that instead of talking about loans we should be talking about a graduate tax, which is a much more progressive approach.

I have two points that I want to raise. First, there is a recognition that the Government have to increase the number of apprenticeships. If that is the case, they have to look at the application of the apprenticeship levy in a way that encourages many more SMEs to take on apprentices. At the moment SMEs are saying they find the scheme complex and an administrative burden. We need to ensure that we remove that complexity and encourage many more SMEs. Secondly, does the Minister recognise the importance of a government National Careers Service website that could become a single source of assured career information for young people and adults?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord’s introduction regarding apprenticeships. The levy has now been in existence for five years. It has enabled significantly more workplace-based training and, I would say, has enhanced the reputation of apprenticeships as an alternative to academic study.

As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, we have offered £2,000 for any new apprenticeship start, which is for a younger person who is under the age of 24, or 25 if they have any HCP, and £1,500 for any other apprenticeship start. However, he is right that the apprenticeship service has been a work in progress. The SMEs now have access to the service via a website that should enable them to access the training that they want, rather than only being able to access training from contracts with providers that were entered into centrally. They can go on that website and reserve the training places that they want to have, and SMEs have been given a small number of guaranteed places.

We are also looking at the development of the levy and at easing the transition and the payment of the levy down the supply chain, which often involves making the levy available to small and medium-sized enterprises. We hope that the introduction of the apprenticeship service to SMEs will help with some of the bureaucratic issues that the noble Lord outlines.