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Work and Skills

I want to pick up on the skills aspect, about which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) has been talking. I want to consider how the skills agenda is playing out on the ground and in practice. I shall do that from the perspective of my constituency, to the extent that it illustrates a number of broader points. I want to illustrate what is at stake in getting the skills mix right for my constituency. It is home to a centre of world expertise in nuclear fusion technology at Culham. The centre is a place of not only cutting-edge science, but cutting-edge engineering. In January, the centre will hold an exhibition here, and I hope that Members will take the opportunity to see the skills on display. Those skills are not required only for the current project, which has a finite life; they are also required as a major part of skills export from the UK to the fusion projects throughout the world in the coming years, in which engineering expertise at Culham will play a major part for the foreseeable future. The centre is not an isolated example; it is part of an arc of technology and engineering that stretches from my constituency into that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), which includes Harwell, the Rutherford Appleton laboratory and the new Diamond Light Source project, from which no self-respecting medical research company will want to be more than spitting distance in future because of the enormous scientific and technological expertise that it offers. What is at stake in getting the skills mix right is the international competitiveness of that whole arc of science and technology in an area that is genuinely world class and cutting edge. Taking forward the skills agenda on the ground is therefore causing considerable local concern, which is caused principally by the lack of flexibility in delivering the skills agenda on the ground and ensuring that it matches skills training with local requirements. The consistent complaints that I get from organisations across the board, in both the private and public sectors, is that Jobcentre Plus, the Learning and Skills Council and programmes such as Train to Gain are far too driven by top-down national policy and fail to give enough recognition to huge local variations. Let me give an example of such a variation in the context of Train to Gain. My constituency lies in a county that has very few benefit claimants of working age; the number is half the national average and lower even than that of the rest of the south-east. Claimants for jobseeker allowances account for less than 1 per cent. Some 84 per cent. of employment is at the top end, much of it in the service sector. Some 70 per cent. of adults of working age already have a level 2 qualification, and almost 84 per cent. have a level 1 qualification. That leaves 7 per cent. with no qualification at all, and it is right that skills programmes should address that 7 per cent., who are already a major feature of a considerable amount of co-ordinated local activity from a number of organisations in the public and private sectors. To pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire about children and teaching in schools, I should say that I am seeing innovative work in trying to use children who have been well taught as an influence on parents and grandparents who have had a bad experience of education, so that those parents and grandparents can be brought back to some form of education and skills training. However, in the round, the distribution of training in my area is clearly skewed to level 1 and 2 qualifications, and not to levels 3, 4 and above, which the area needs if it is to maintain its international competitiveness in scientific and technology establishments, which are intensive in research and development. I receive complaints that the parachuting in of Train to Gain is more about achieving a uniform approach than about recognising the need for that flexibility. Further education colleges have expressed concern that the constraints on training have been too great. Initially, the colleges welcomed the prospect of those constraints being relaxed and of the £350 million announced in the recent ministerial statement. However, as time goes on they are getting more and more suspicious that that is taking their eye off the need for front-line skills, which are suffering in comparison with back-office skills.