Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department has made on the roll-out of the national retraining scheme in 2020; and on what date that scheme will commence.
The government has started to roll out Get Help to Retrain, the first part of the National Retraining Scheme. This service helps users to understand their current skills, explore alternative occupations that they could work in and find and sign up to the training that they need to access opportunities for a broad range of good jobs.
Since the start of the roll-out of Get Help to Retrain in the Liverpool City Region in July, more features have been added to the service and it has been rolled out to users in a further 5 areas. The service will be further tested and improved in 2020, using user research and feedback to inform future development.
Over the course of this Parliament, the government are also providing £2.5 billion (£3 billion including indicative Barnett consequentials), for a new National Skills Fund to help people learn new skills and prepare for the economy of the future. We are planning to consult widely on the overall design and we will provide updates on the National Skills Fund and planned consultation.