New body will work with Migration Advisory Committee to identify and address current and future skills gaps
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the launch of Skills England today in a speech at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Image credit: Wikipedia The Government says the new body will bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions of the country. Part of the aim is to enable British businesses to recruit more home-grown talent, thus reducing net migration.
The Prime Minister said the UK economy has become over-reliant on higher and higher levels of migration and Skills England marks a 'turning of the page' on the policy of 'pulling the easy lever of importing skills'.
Labour's election manifesto criticised the record levels of net migration seen under the previous Conservative government. In an article published in May ahead of the election, the Labour Party said: "Every time the Tories have faced a choice between raising skills and working conditions here in the UK or issuing more visas, they choose the higher migration option."
In today's speech, Keir Starmer said Skills England will work with the Migration Advisory Committee to identify current and future skills gaps, and to put in place plans to address those gaps.
The relevant section covering migration from the Prime Minister's speech is reproduced below:
"…All too often young people in our country have been let down, not given access to the right opportunities or training in their community. And that's created an over-reliance in our economy on higher and higher levels of migration.
"Now, I don't for a second want to demean any of that. I do not criticize businesses who hire overseas workers, and I certainly don't diminish the contribution that migration makes to our economy, to our public services, and of course to our communities. Migration is part of our national story, and it always has been, always will be.
"And yet, if you stand back, as a system, it cannot be right that some people don't get to feel the pride of making a contribution, the dignity of work, just because we can't find a way of creating a coherent skills system. That can't be right. So I have to say that we won't be content just to pull the easy lever of importing skills. We're turning the page on that.
"But I want to be clear as well. We are going to make sure that there are highly motivated, ambitious, talented young people who want to work in your business. That is our long-term ambition. We're going to fire up the training of more UK workers and match people's aspirations, which I know are there, with more opportunity. And in doing this, we will drive growth because if there's one thing we know that will drive innovation and accelerate productivity, it's having the skilled workers you need to grow your business.
"So from the get-go, Skills England will work with the Migration Advisory Committee. We will identify current and future skills gaps, put in place plans to address those gaps, and reduce our long-term reliance on overseas workers. We will also identify the training on which the Growth and Skills Levy could be spent, something that I've spent many hours discussing with many people in this room. You told me it was not flexible enough, didn't work well enough for you, and we will change that, with the Growth and Skills Levy giving you more flexibility to spend funds on the training that you think is really necessary.
"Skills England will bring together central and local government, training providers, and unions, working together in broader partnership with business. And this is key because I said on the steps of Downing Street two weeks ago Thursday that I wanted to govern for the whole country. Part of that is making sure we all understand each other's needs, that we move beyond old antagonisms and work for the common cause of national renewal—a partnership.
"So today, with the launch of Skills England, we're putting that partnership into action. We listened to you during the campaign and over the last few years. We listened to you when we were developing our plan for growth, and that informs it. Some of your fingerprints are on our plan, and I hope they reflect the conversations that we had.
"And we'll carry on listening because that's how a partnership works. We are making demands. We want growth. We want you to power up that growth, but you equally can say to us, in order for that to work, this is the framework that you need to put into place. That's how a partnership works—where both sides understand what their part is but recognize they're not the same part. Government and business do different things. And that's why we'll have our new industrial strategy, the defense strategic review, and much, much more. Together, I do believe we can deliver that growth and security, fix the foundations, put our economy on a stable footing, and create a coherent skills system."