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Sir Keir Starmer has said his government will resist the “easy lever” of foreign workers, as he launched a new body to tackle what he dubbed Britain’s “fragmented and broken” training system.
The body, Skills England, will mostly replace an existing quango called the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and will be responsible for deciding which adult training courses receive government funding.
The body will work closely with central government, councils, businesses, trade unions and training providers to address the country’s “skills gap”. It will also work alongside the Migration Advisory Committee, which advises ministers on migration policy, to identify current skills shortages.
“We are going to make sure there are highly motivated, ambitious, talented young people who want to work in your business,” the prime minister said in a speech at the Farnborough International Airshow in Hampshire on Monday.
“We are going to fire up the training of all UK workers . . . and in doing this we will drive growth because if there’s one thing we know that will drive innovation and accelerate productivity, [it] is having skilled workers,” he added.
Shortages of skilled workers span infrastructure projects, with large schemes and utilities companies including nuclear project Hinkley Point C, National Grid and Thames Water warning in recent months of their impact on cost and future delivery.
Starmer said it would be easy for the government to rely on immigration to fill skills gaps in the economy, but added: “We won’t be content just to pull the easy lever of importing skills. We are turning the page on that.”
Richard Pennycook, former Co-op chief executive, will serve as interim chair of the body, which education secretary Bridget Phillipson said would “jump-start young people’s careers and galvanise local economies”.
Starmer said the skills system was “in a mess” after 14 years of Conservative-led government, adding there was no “quick fix” to the long-term problem affecting British businesses.
“That is why we are transforming our approach to meet skills needs over the coming decades,” he said. He noted it was Labour’s “number one mission as a government, to kick-start economic growth, by opening up new opportunities for young people and enabling British businesses to recruit more homegrown talent”.
The government also announced plans to change the existing “apprenticeship levy” system to give businesses more flexibility to spend money that is currently earmarked for apprenticeships.
It claimed there had been a low take-up of the levy among businesses, a policy introduced by the previous Conservative government eight years ago, which raises roughly £3.5bn a year.
Under a rebranded scheme called the “growth and skills levy” Labour will let eligible companies use up to 50 per cent of the money raised to fund other types of training.
Starmer said the change to the levy had been demanded by business leaders: “You told me it was not flexible enough, didn’t work well enough for you, we will change that with the growth and skills levy, giving you more flexibility to spend the funds on the training that you think is really necessary,” he added.