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Apprenticeships (EAC Report)

rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the Economic Affairs Committee on Apprenticeship: A Key Route to Skill (Fifth Report, Session 2006-07, HL Paper 138). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very pleased to introduce this debate. The report of the Economic Affairs Committee on apprenticeships was published last summer. However, the Government are now preparing their apprenticeship review for publication, I hope, within a few weeks and later in the year they plan to introduce a Bill reforming apprenticeship provision. On that basis, this debate is extremely timely. First, I should like to thank my colleagues on the Economic Affairs Committee for their painstaking work on our report. As usual, the report is evidence-based and entirely non-party-political, and has been agreed by all members of the committee. I also would like to thank our specialist adviser for this inquiry, Dr Hilary Steedman of the London School of Economics, as well as our clerk and his team. Perhaps your Lordships will permit me to interject a personal note. This is the ninth report produced by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs under my chairmanship. Along with our report on climate change some years ago, it is one of the most important. But more than that, if they are wise, all Select Committees produce unanimous reports. All of ours are unanimous, but some are more unanimous than others. I have chaired many committees and Select Committees in my time and I had absolutely no difficulty in getting members right across the committee to agree this report. We were all keen not to place the blame for the present situation, which is pretty serious, on the present Government. We recognise a point given to us in evidence: the problems we are dealing with go back over 100 years. So while those of us who have served in government and some distinguished advisers to governments in the past must accept some partial responsibility, it is to this Government whom we look for solutions to the problems of the present. We thought that the Government response to our report was disheartening. It set out or reiterated many eminently worthy objectives, but what was sadly and blatantly missing was a coherent, credible action plan to achieve those objectives and thus address the skills crisis among Britain’s youth. Indeed, the Government even declined to acknowledge a number of the problems raised by the committee. However, I hope very much that the response does not represent the Government’s final word on the matters raised by the committee and I look forward to fresh thinking in the review and the Bill, of which I hope the Minister will be able to give us a foretaste today. I shall briefly outline the committee’s findings. Britain’s record in vocational training is poor. This is a longstanding problem. Indeed, we found that it goes back for more than 100 years, and as a result, legions of young people—