Contribution
My Lords, in moving Amendment 9, I will also speak to Amendment 15.
As noble Lords know all too well, we have had considerable concerns about two elements of the set-up of Skills England: first, the independence of the body; and, secondly, its ability to respond to the needs of employers and learners. The second area concerns the space that Skills England needs to deliver its priorities before absorbing, or indeed being absorbed by, IfATE. The Minister spoke, I think for the for the first time, about the more elongated process of that.
We believe that the first risk remains that Skills England could be buffeted by changing political priorities, and that that remains a greater risk while it is in the department. However, we recognise the lengths to which the Minister has gone to reassure noble Lords of its relative independence.
Indeed, in her recent letter she stressed the balance between securing
“external technical expertise and political impartiality”
while
“ensuring close policy alignment”.
She went so far as to commit to a review of Skills England. Her letter states that the review will ensure that Skills England’s functions remain useful and necessary, and
“will also assess whether there are more efficient and effective alternatives to deliver the government’s objectives including consideration of alternative types of ALB. This will include an assessment of whether SE should be brought onto a statutory basis”.
I referred in my earlier remarks to finding that slightly ironic, given the length of time we have spent debating that. I had mixed feelings about that paragraph. It seems extraordinary that, within two years, given all the time the Government have had to plan for the change, they might decide that Skills England is not the right vehicle to deliver their skills strategy. As I said earlier, I find it highly unlikely that the Government would then decide at that point to put Skills England on a statutory footing, so maybe the noble Baroness could just explain what was behind the thinking in that paragraph.
In relation to Amendment 9, I will take the noble Baroness’s letter at face value. Although we remain concerned at the potential for political interference with the independence of Skills England, we welcome the openness of the Government to review the position in future.
Amendment 15 aims to pick up the second set of concerns articulated by several noble Lords in our previous debates, but perhaps most eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in his speech in Committee. He said:
“My fear, which I expressed briefly … at Second Reading, is that given the number of people currently transferable from IfATE, full- and part-time, which nudges 200, given the macro job that Skills England will need to do and given the way in which the policy framework was at least touched on on 24 September … there is a real danger that IfATE will swamp Skills England at birth”.
He went on to say that, when he led on another learning and skills document,
“we never envisaged that an agency inside government would have to take on the assurance and accreditation of the relevant sector standards”.—[Official Report, 21/11/24; col. GC 98.]
So, Amendment 15 aims to address, at least partially, the risk that Skills England is diverted from its central strategic task and buried under the weight of the accreditation and assurance process. It creates a one-year delay between the establishment of Skills England and the commencement of this legislation, so that Skills England has a better chance of getting up and running as effectively as possible before absorbing the IfATE functions.
The Minister has told us that the recruitment for the role of CEO of Skills England is going well, and similarly for the board, but these things take a moment to bed in. It takes time to recruit the wider team and to build the culture within Skills England. So, none of this in any way seeks to impede the Government’s ambitions; it just wants to give them a bit more opportunity to set up the structures for success.
As the noble Baroness noted, there is a lot of good will towards Skills England across the House, and we have heard that again today. But I just feel that, if we were privy to the risk register—which I am guessing that the noble Baroness is not planning to publish in draft—there would be a few risks marked in red, which would say something like, “Insufficient resources to deliver on the strategy”, “Time pressure to build effective relationships with other government departments”, or, “The ability to hire a high-quality team at speed”. The amendment in my name and the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, gives the Government breathing space to implement this well. All of us who have been involved in government know that writing a policy is not the difficult bit; implementing it and making sure that it is executed effectively is at least 10 times as hard. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s remarks.