Lord Storey (LD)

My Lords, the Minister makes very strongly the case for skills, in terms of the Government’s agenda for growth, which is something we all support. As a nation, we have been slow on the uptake in realising that we owe it not just to our nation but to our young people in particular to ensure that they have the skills and the opportunities to contribute, including to their own well-being. At the beginning, people were disappointed when this much-heralded Bill arrived. We all thought it was going to be a skills Bill, as the name on the jar suggested, so we were quite shocked. I think that the best description of the Bill came from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett— I cannot possibly repeat it, so I will leave Members to look at Hansard to see what he said. My view was that if we want to provide what the Government want, we have to be open and flexible. We cannot just leave it all to the department to get it right or wrong. It was very difficult to look at ways to contribute, to be quite honest. You would go to the Legislation Office, which would say, “Oh, this is not in scope; that is not in scope”, so you had to look for mechanisms to actually make a positive contribution and to hopefully make a success of this. My amendment was to say that the Secretary of State should report to Parliament within 12 months of the passage of the Act to address the skills gaps, et cetera. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for reaching out and having a number of conversations about the Bill. I have to say that it is not perfect—we are not in a perfect world—but she did that and I am very grateful to her for it. Much has been made of the draft framework for Skills England. I ask noble Lords to put their hands up if they have read it from cover to cover—I am sorry; that is teacher mode. Well, I found it quite depressing at times. Let me just read some, on a very minor point. By the way, this wins the “Yes Minister” prize: “Any disputes between the department and Skills England will be resolved in as timely a manner as possible. The department and Skills England will seek to resolve any disputes through an informal process in the first instance. If this is not possible, then a formal process, overseen by the senior sponsor, will be used to resolve the issue. Failing this, the senior sponsor will ask the relevant policy director-general to oversee the dispute. They may then choose to ask the Permanent Secretary to nominate a non-executive member of the department’s board to review the dispute, mediate with both sides and reach an outcome, in consultation with the Secretary of State”. My goodness me. If that is how we operate, I really worry about our ability to develop the skills we need. Joking apart, I think the draft skills document needs to reflect a few other things, which I could not see in it. Perhaps the Minister can reassure me. Wearing my local government hat, I am conscious that our 34 combined authorities have responsibilities in terms of developing skills and have put together skills programmes. I wonder how that will be addressed by the Minister. When she responds, perhaps she can home in on that for me. I will deal with the other issues when we come to them.