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Skills for Growth

My Lords, I straight away join the noble Baroness in congratulating the team at Calgary—she is right to draw attention to their success. I thank her in particular for the welcome that she has given to the new skills strategy and the way in which she at least has addressed the proposals contained in the strategy, rather than offering what I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, does not mind me saying was a broad-brush, rhetorical dismissal of what the Government are announcing today. I hope that it was not because I failed to give him the Statement sufficiently in advance for him to read it. If that is the case, I will remonstrate with my private office. I also say to the noble Baroness that we have no intention of reducing the fund that we are making available for training unemployed people and any other needy and vulnerable groups in society, including those with learning difficulties and disabilities. We recognise the important part that informal adult learning plays in society and we will continue to support informal adult learning opportunities for vulnerable, low-skilled adults. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord, Hunt, should not, I am glad to say, get carried away by anything they read in the Sunday newspapers. The savings target referred to in the rather hyped piece of virtual journalism was made clear by the Government in April at the time of the Budget, and in May in a public letter from my predecessor, John Denham, to the Learning and Skills Council. In implementing the changes, there will be no reduction in apprenticeship numbers or provision for needy and vulnerable groups in society. In fact, those are increasing. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord should not worry. We will fund the commitments that we are announcing today by progressively refocusing money from lower priorities. I say to the noble Baroness that I am responsible for 19-plus provision. That is the context in which we are talking about sweeping away what I call the cluttered landscape of public bodies that are responsible for delivering our skills. The noble Baroness asked about cultural and creative skills. In many respects these are quality, value-adding skills that are essential for many of the new jobs that are being created in growing sectors of our economy. Where these are linked to employers’ and businesses’ demand for skills, we would like to see the number of those courses increased. In respect of skills accounts, the information that the noble Baroness asked for is in the Statement. Our desire is to see public money following individual choice and going to courses and institutions that are providing the very skills and training that are needed and demanded by people. I return to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We are certainly not abandoning the ambition in the proposals set out by my noble friend Lord Leitch that we should be a world leader in skills through the creation of a truly demand-led system and that we should integrate employment and skills services. We are on course to meet, or nearly meet, most of our interim targets for 2011, based on my noble friend’s report, but we are behind on higher level 3. We need to do better there if we are to sustain recovery and return to growth. This historic gap in intermediate skills has led us to expand advanced apprenticeships as part of creating a modern technician class. Lastly, in response to the noble Lord, he played on today’s unemployment figures, particularly those relating to young people. Of course, any figures of that kind are disappointing and a cause for concern, but unemployment among 16 to 24 year-olds has not hit the 1 million that many people predicted; it is broadly—I repeat, broadly—unchanged. This is due not least to the guarantee offered by the Government to all 18 to 24 year-olds. The figures show a significant increase in the number of young people in full-time education, which indicates that the Government’s guarantee is working. As for the noble Lord’s commendation of Mr David Cameron’s ““remarkable”” speech last night, the last time that we heard a Conservative Leader of the Opposition pronouncing that government is the source of all our problems in our economy and society, and that the way to cut poverty and unemployment in Britain was to cut back government, poverty and unemployment soared to record levels after Mrs Thatcher came into office. I do not think—once bitten, twice shy—that anyone will be wanting to follow the advice and contents of Mr Cameron’s ““remarkable”” speech.