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Skills Base

My Lords, is it not very sad that in 2007 we are still bedevilled by the vocational and academic divide, and still have not established parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications and routes? I declare an interest as president of the National Training Federation for Wales and as adviser to a Merthyr charity, Tydfil Training. I have looked at the Leitch report through the eyes of a Welshman. Of course, most of the skills strategy is devolved and now needs to be the strategy of four nations, not just one. The Welsh labour market is characterised specifically and especially by the preponderance of a large number of SMEs and micro-employers, which presents particular challenges in delivering and engaging employers in skills. The other sad feature of the Welsh labour market is its higher preponderance and higher percentage of economically inactive people of working age, which is much greater than many national figures. To mean something to Wales, any skills agenda will have to address both those issues. Having emphasised the distinctive character of the situation in Wales, I have to say that I believe Welsh policymakers should share almost all the ambitions and major recommendations of my noble friend’s report—that is, the need for a high-skilled, hi-tech labour force; the real need for economically valuable skills; and, in particular, the necessity to find out the needs and demands of employers—and deliver on them. Therefore, I support the noble Lord’s proposed commission with one major proviso: the commission should accurately reflect the different regional and nations’ employers, not just the great, the good and the large; otherwise, it will be just another quango. I hope that my noble friend will ensure that that happens. We should support the proposed new duties and responsibilities on the skills councils, but, again, with a major proviso, which my noble friends, including my noble friend Lord Leitch, spoke about. The skills councils are not resourced or robust enough, and perhaps not even representative enough, for those duties and responsibilities. Certainly, in Welsh terms, I do not believe that they are. Therefore, it is very important that, if we are to place these duties on skills councils, they are capable and truly representative of the employer network. Behind all my noble friend’s proposals in this regard is the concern and feeling that the skills presently being delivered—the frameworks and apprenticeships—do not reflect employers’ or learners’ needs. My noble friend recommends that we have half a million apprentices. I do not think that we need a target of half a million. The content of those apprenticeships is equally important. Are the frameworks fit for purpose? No longer in Wales is the average apprentice a 16-plus year-old going into manufacturing or the public utilities, the great traditional apprenticeships of the 1950s and 1960s. The overwhelming majority of Welsh apprentices are 19 years old plus. They do not go into those traditional industries but into a diverse range of service sector industries—food, tourism, retail and warehousing—where there has not been a traditional ethos of established apprenticeships, which is why one finds the most remarkable variation in completion rates between sectors. Because of that, there is no established idea of apprenticeships in a lot of the new service sectors. We need to address that to make sure that the apprenticeship frameworks are fit for purpose. It is quite clear that some of these failure rates reflect not a lack of interest or commitment but that apprenticeships are not appropriate and fit for purpose. Training providers have been blamed at various times for trying to foist inappropriate programmes on employers—the supply side as opposed to the demand side. All that training providers are doing is delivering the programmes that the awarding and funding bodies specify. Those specifications need to be examined and addressed. It would be invaluable if the Leitch recommendations could drive that message through and that programme forward. There must be a skills agenda to address the 7.9 million people of working age who are economically inactive nationally. In Wales and in the communities that I represent, that is a horrifyingly disproportionate number. A skills agenda has to address that. Since I left the other place, I have seen lone parents and long-term unemployed people who have never been anywhere near the labour market get into sustainable employment as a result of skilfully delivered numeracy and literacy programmes with job-specific qualifications attached and motivational programmes. It is happening, but it can happen more. There has to be more success. Since my noble friend Lord Leitch’s report has been published, there has been a second report by Mr David Freud on reducing dependency and increasing opportunity. I had hoped that his report would complement my noble friend’s, but unfortunately it does the opposite. As my noble friend states on page 4 of his report: "““Don’t always chop and change. Instead, improve performance of current structures … Continuity is important””." The Freud report will chop and change, seeks to uproot, radically alter and centralise. Perhaps I may send one simple message to my noble friend on the Front Bench and to the Ministers who will be responsible for carrying this agenda forward: please embrace Leitch but not Freud.