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Work and Skills

My hon. Friend makes his point extremely well. Far too much of what has been claimed to have been achieved has been the assessment and certification of skills that people already have. That has taken precedence over giving people the skills that they need, especially in the work place. I am very interested to hear that the Train to Gain money is to be refocused. I am not sure what that means in this context, but doubtless we shall find out in the fullness of time. It is common ground between us that more needs to be done to help people to reach higher levels of skill. Last year, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills accepted that we must do better if we are to be competitive in a global economy and to offer new opportunities. To achieve that, however, we need to have the right framework in place. I remember when the Bill that became the Learning and Skills Act 2000 passed through this House. It established the learning and skills councils to fulfil the role of providing people with skills and apprenticeships, and replaced the training and enterprise councils, even though they had a successful track record of devolving responsibility to the local level and involving private enterprise. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) played a large part in setting up the TECs, and I recall him describing the LSCs as being merely a change for change's sake. On top of that, we now have more change. Just a few years on, it seems that the LSCs were not the answer after all. They are to be replaced by three new bodies, to add to the pantheon of bodies that are involved in the provision of training and further education. The Government now say, as the Secretary of State the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills put it, that they want to put"““employers at the heart of the skills system.””—[Official Report, 18 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 298.]" That is precisely where employers were before the Government interfered with the training network in the first place. We have brought forward our proposals on skills. Putting skills in the work place and putting employers in charge of providing them is at the core of our proposals. We want to bring help to small and medium-sized enterprises to enable them to do that. We want the process to give special help to them and to the people whom we now call NEETs—not in employment, education or training. We also want to give a better deal for adult community learning. We have a very wide agenda on skills. We recognise that there is a need for fresh thinking on the subject, and we will provide it.