Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential role of trade unions in driving up skills in the workplace.
The department works with a range of stakeholders as it develops its policies. It consults widely and its public consultations are open to all interested parties. We have recently consulted on reforms to further education funding and accountability, the National Skills Fund, flexi job apprenticeships and review of qualifications. Public consultations enable the department to gather a range of views, input and evidence as it develops its policies. Trade unions are free to respond to our consultations and their views would be welcome.
As part of our work on being committed to playing our part to support the labour market transition to net zero, in November last year, we established (jointly with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) the Green Jobs Taskforce, which has helped to build the evidence on skills and workforce needs in key green sectors. The Trade Union Congress and Prospect were members of the Green Jobs Taskforce. That has informed our contribution to the Net Zero Strategy which was published on 19 October 2021. Building on the Skills for Jobs White Paper, the Net Zero Strategy sets out how our skills reforms will strengthen links between employers and providers, support workers in high carbon sectors with the transition, and help to build a pipeline of future talent.
This will build on our existing range of skills policies that we have introduced to improve skills at all levels.
The introduction of T Levels will boost access to high quality technical education for thousands of 16-19 year olds and we are providing an extra £1.6 billion boost for 16-19 year olds' education including maintaining funding in real terms per student and delivering more hours of teaching for T Levels.
We are continuing with our commitment to supporting more people to benefit from the high-quality training that apprenticeships offer by increasing funding for apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by 2024-25.
We are also investing over £550 million by 2024-25 to make sure adults can upskill to reach their potential, delivering on the National Skills Fund commitment. This includes expanding level 3 course offer in high value, high demand subjects and scaling up skills bootcamps.