Contribution
My Lords, in moving Amendment 1 I will speak also to Amendments 2, 4 and 5 standing in my name. Amendments 1 and 4 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, mirror the amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in Committee, which I also put my name to. They seek to bring the expertise of sector representative bodies to the preparation of standards and assessment plans and distribute the workload so that Skills England is not drowned in the preparation and updating of standards.
I note that there is a reference to employer representative bodies in the section of the draft framework document that covers the purposes of Skills England, although it is used merely as an example. Can the Minister articulate what the block is to the Government committing to work with employer representative bodies? The Government stress the breadth of their ambition for their industrial strategy and for Skills England’s part in delivering this, so why not bring in the wider expertise capacity of employer representative bodies, both in more traditional and more modern sectors?
I turn to Amendments 2 and 5, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has also given his support. These amendments seek to give the Government one last chance to be absolutely explicit in their commitment to employers and to those undertaking training. The text of the amendment comes from the original IfATE legislation and so has been thoroughly tested not just in debate in both Houses but also in real life.
I am told by those who have been involved in the governance of IfATE that the duty to
“have regard to the reasonable requirements of … industry, commerce, finance, professions and other employers regarding education and training, and … persons who …. wish to undertake education and training”
has been a very serious duty in relation to the approval of a standard under new subsections (3) or (6).
The Minister will understand very well the influence that government policy has on employers. Recently, the Government announced that level 7 apprenticeships would no longer be eligible for the levy and there are question marks over the funding of some level 6 apprenticeships. This policy had been trailed for some time. If we look at the impact on recent apprenticeship starts, levels 6 and 7 saw starts rise by 10.9% as employers scramble to lock in funding ahead of the proposed changes. However, starts at levels 2 and 3 and the absolute level of under-19s participating in apprenticeships declined. So, while the Secretary of State celebrated the overall increase in apprenticeship starts of 1.3%, the building blocks of this rise are exactly the ones that the Government are removing. There is a real risk that the changes they propose, with the move to a growth and skills levy, will result in a drop in the number of people undertaking these qualifications, as funding for existing high-quality qualifications is removed and newer ones are perhaps not made the immediate priority for employers, particularly given the likely impact of employers’ national insurance contribution increases on recruitment into lower-paid roles.
All of this matters because the framework document is, at best, vague and, at worst, silent on the involvement of employers. There are some statements in the section on aims, saying that employers will be engaged in the preparation of occupational standards, but it does not say how. The rest of the document, particularly the section on the responsibilities of the chief executive, does not refer to this. It focuses rather on their role as accounting officer in relation to the board and the department, with no mention of employers.
There are broad references in the section on the purposes of the new agency and the reference I mentioned earlier in brackets to employer representative bodies but, if I were an employer, I would be concerned and would want an explicit reassurance from the Minister about my role going forward. I urge the Minister either to explain why employers are so much less visible in the framework document or to agree that this amendment would fit best within the Bill or, at the very least, in the next draft of the framework document. I hope that she can commit to that today. If I may, I will speak to her Amendments 3 and 6 after she has spoken to them. I beg to move.