Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local training is available to enable communities to benefit from the low-carbon jobs the Local Government Association report Local green jobs - accelerating a sustainable economic recovery, published on 11 June, estimates will be supported by England’s net zero transition by 2030 and 2050.

We want to make the skills systems more responsive to employer skill needs both locally and nationally and we have been working with employers in all sectors including those in the green economy sector to jointly design and deliver policies and programmes to do this.

This includes key reforms to apprenticeships, making them longer, better, with more off-the job training and proper assessment at the end. With employers in control of developing standards, they can be assured that apprentices will get the skills employers need. There are range of apprenticeships standards in the Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care pathway such as Crop Technicians, Forest Operatives, Ecologists and Environmental practitioner, which is used by employers of all types seeking to promote sustainable growth.

We are also making technical education more responsive to the needs of communities and employers, with the introduction of T Levels this September, proposals to reform higher technical education and investment in Institutes of Technology – flagship providers that will help to drive regional growth in key areas like engineering and advanced manufacturing and meeting higher level technical skills needs.