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Building a High-Skilled Economy

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) for his maiden speech. He had no need to be nervous; it was an extremely entertaining and informative maiden speech. I thank him for his kind comments about his predecessor, Kali Mountford. On the Labour Benches, we think of Kali with great affection, so we thank him. I am pleased that mention has been made of the "Skills for Growth" White Paper, which has been important in defining our skills needs for the next few decades. As the Minister knows, the White Paper put particular emphasis on vocational skills and argued for a dramatic expansion of advanced apprenticeships, particularly for young adults. It also argued for the skilling of adults who are already in employment and those seeking work, and for improving the quality of provision in our FE and other institutions. At the same time, "Higher Ambitions" set out equally challenging demands for our university sector. It asked universities to work with the Higher Education Funding Council for England to devise new funding incentives so that we could deliver higher education programmes that were more acutely related to the needs of the economy, and to work with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to identify where new programmes were needed to meet areas of low demand. It set out the need to improve the relationship between universities and businesses and, crucially, to build better relationships between universities and regional development agencies. I noticed that the Minister was very quiet on that subject today, but as the Government are about to destroy the whole RDA framework, I should be interested to hear what he has to say about how universities and FE colleges will work with whatever structure is set up to ensure that regional development continues.