Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)

My Lords, I feel almost as though I should resume from the top for completeness. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his comments and questions and, underlying those, for his welcome for the provisions through the adult skills fund. The important thing to remember is that devolution is about giving freedom to those who best understand local needs. We are looking for resources to be managed effectively and, in particular, to deliver greater positive impacts for local people. I do not think I need to remind the Committee that this Government inherited a very challenging fiscal context. We know that adult skills play a vital role in driving economic growth, and we must make sure that we fix the foundations of the economy in the meantime. We acknowledge that there has been a small reduction of 3% to the overall adult skills fund for the next year. However, the Government will invest more than £1.4 billion in the adult skills fund next year, which is a significant amount of funding. The budget has been reduced nationally for all devolved areas. However, the context in each area of the country is different. Each area will assess how it is managing its overall budget, and will make choices and priorities within that. Of course, the Government will continue to work closely with the devolved areas to make sure that they have the support to make the best use of the funding. I can speak from personal experience, as a former member of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, when I say that all of the constituent local authorities take this responsibility very seriously and want to make sure that they are delivering the best outcomes for both the people who live in their areas and the businesses that perform in them. On that basis, I completely agree that it is very important that we look at outcomes and that we always look for ways to learn and to improve from the devolved areas. Of course, because of local circumstances, each devolved area will come up with a slightly different approach to the opportunities and challenges that it faces. The Government hold areas to account through the English devolution framework; accountability is absolutely key for the significant amounts of public money that are now being devolved to those areas. In conclusion, I reiterate that our priority is to build a skills system that will drive forward opportunity and deliver growth for our economy needs. Again, determination at the local level is absolutely fundamental to understanding where the economy needs the skills and how they should be co-produced. It is a really important aspect of the new qualifications that will be at their disposal, from the powers they will get, that employers have been very closely involved in the design of these qualifications. Making sure that adults can access these high-quality qualifications, no matter where they live, is an absolutely fundamental principle.