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Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Board) Order 2005

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving such a clear and thorough explanation of the order before us. This order, concerned with boosting and supporting skills and training in the engineering industry, falls within the remit of the Department for Education and Skills, yet it is clear from the debate in another place and from the speech just made by the noble Baroness that we have almost crossed over into DTI territory. I well appreciate that to sustain a competitive economy we must constantly strive to provide solid foundations in training and skills. Our engineering and manufacturing industries have been hard hit in recent years by redundancies and bad press. Hundreds of thousands of vacancies remain unfilled each year because of skills shortages; this costs UK employers billions of pounds every year. It is not surprising, therefore, that the levy which the order proposes is imposed at the suggestion of employers. It is done with the consent of and at the request of the industry, which sees the levy as providing greater benefit to it in the dynamic and demand-led training and skills which it provides. Benefits include boosting standards, ensuring consistency in training provided, developing vocational training and apprenticeships and other vital roles. This is one very positive example of co-operation between the Government and the private sector in the interests of our national economy and our engineering industry as a whole. It appears that ““everyone’s a winner””, including small businesses, which I am pleased to see are exempt from paying the levy if they fall under a minimum threshold. For this reason, we on these Benches firmly support the order. However—and there is always a ““however”” from Her Majesty’s Opposition—will the Minister consider the other side of the equation? Instead of levying employers to cover costs of skills training to keep up with the ever-growing demand for skilled workers, the Government might think about ways of addressing the ever-decreasing higher and further education training which supplies such skills at an earlier stage. I am talking about the decline in universities and schools in teaching and fostering science, in particular chemistry and engineering. I am talking about university engineering departments closing down, valuable research departments running out of funding and the growing prevalence of young people to opt for easier A-levels instead of physics and maths. A levy on employers should be seen in conjunction with a concerted effort to address the problem of this decline. Will the noble Baroness say what action, if any, the Government are taking along these lines? We have before us a significant engineering challenge in the shape of the 2012 Olympics, as mentioned by my honourable friend in another place. I hope that this will inspire and encourage our native industries to prosper and grow to show off our engineering capabilities at their finest to the rest of the world.