Lifelong Learning

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Knight, on securing this debate. This is a key issue that touches all our lives.

I congratulate the House of Lords Library on an excellent brief. It reminded me of the significance of the Workers’ Educational Association, which was used by my union’s education college. At that time it was avidly supported by the Communist Party. The WEA was good at what it did and supplied good teaching.

As so many people have told us, if you are an active Member of the House of Lords, you are engaged in lifelong learning. It is dead easy. As somebody said, “You come in here and you learn something every day”. In fact, I usually reflect that when I am speaking about something, there will be at least half a dozen noble Lords who are twice as knowledgeable as I am about the subject. That is just a fact of life.

The Labour Government’s policy and what they are attempting to do is pretty good. They are going to devolve funding. I suggest that this should not just be for skills, but that apprenticeship funding ought to be included. I would welcome the Minister’s views on this. Reforming the apprenticeship levy is long overdue; it needs to be made more relevant and more flexible.

Tomorrow is the 213th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, of whom I am a fan. He was a man who believed in lifelong learning. He was a supporter of the mechanics’ institutes, which encouraged working-class people to learn. Dickens gave wonderful performances of extracts from his novels, and of course he spoke from experience, as he tramped the streets of London learning about what life was really like on those streets—I am trying to keep an eye on the time.

I want to give a plug for something I do regularly in lifelong learning, which is “Learn with the Lords”. I go out and speak to young people. When I ask them why they think I am coming to talk to them, they usually tell me it is because I am going to educate them. I say, “No, no, you’re wrong; you’re going to educate me”, and that is what happens. It is very interesting talking to them about whether they think they should have votes at 16. You get a much more nuanced response to that than you would imagine.

I am not such a pessimist as some have been in this debate. First, I notice from my own children how people do not stay in the same job. They move and change, as my own son has done. In fact, at one point I had to give him a nudge. He had been at a company for eight years, obviously he was not enjoying it anymore, and now he is doing exceedingly well. We have to think differently.

The nature of apprenticeships is also changing, which is a good thing. You can be an apprenticeship lawyer, doctor, nurse or accountant, which is great. So we should not be too pessimistic. Of course, artificial intelligence will have an impact, but some skills will always be with us. I relish the fact that, after many years of trying, I still cannot hang a door. That is because I am not a very good carpenter and probably never will be. We will need carpenters—that is for sure.

The Government have to rise to the challenge. I am confident that they will do so. We in the Lords should be capable of giving them advice that they will listen to.

I want to congratulate my noble friend on her brilliant maiden speech. I did not have any trouble with the accent, but then, “I’m a cockney, aren’t I?”