Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

My Lords, establishing Skills England is a manifesto commitment. The Prime Minister announced the creation of Skills England in July last year. He set out the Government’s approach to delivering our growth and opportunity missions in the Plan for Change. This change is already under way, and Skills England’s creation is a key part of that change. I set out in the second group of amendments the need for the Government to respond urgently to critical issues within the skills system by establishing Skills England. For too long, the skills system has not provided enough young people with the right pathways through education and into employment; it has not responded to some of the issues outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf; and it has not provided sufficient roaring or teeth, in order to make sure that we are addressing the need for our skills structures to boost skills, productivity and opportunity. That is why, in Skills England, we are bringing coherence to the skills system, combining new functions with improvements to existing ones. On the points made about the delay in bringing IfATE’s functions into Skills England, the point of Skills England is that it will enable us to build on the work of IfATE, which, during Committee, I have commended. I have said that I think that really important work has been done there, as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, bringing employers into the heart of developing standards and apprenticeships. Nevertheless, the function of IfATE has been narrower than the challenge of skills development now needs. We will be building on the work of IfATE, but putting it in the context of a much larger and more significant organisation that will be able to identify where the gaps are in our skills system; that will be able to work alongside employers, trade unions, providers, local government, the mayoral authorities and others to identify where those gaps are; but that will look to where those gaps will be in the future, and use the functions transferred from IfATE to develop the technical education and apprenticeships to help fill those gaps. It is really important that those two functions operate together. With Skills England, we are not starting from scratch here, as I have frequently emphasised: Skills England is already operational in shadow form and doing that important work to identify skills gaps. As I spoke about at some length in the previous group, our belief is that the executive agency model for Skills England is the best fit to enable it to get fully operational as soon as possible. The amendments in this group would, I am afraid, delay the establishment of Skills England. I understand the points being made, but I am more confident about and more ambitious for the speed with which we can move than other noble Lords. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, this is not simply a policy statement; Skills England already exists in shadow form and is engaging with employers. It is already advising the Government and publishing its state of the nation analysis, and it will be facilitated to do that through the bringing across of the functions currently vested in IfATE. Amendment 9 would impose a requirement on the Secretary of State to establish Skills England as a statutory body with a separate legal identity. I might be being picky but, to come back to the description by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others of Skills England being absorbed within the department, I have gone to some lengths to explain the nature of the arm’s-length body that we are setting up in Skills England as an executive agency and the way it will operate, appropriately independently from the department while still being close enough to feed into important policy developments.