debates/debates2025-02-25c conversation_20
Source: hansard.parliament.uk (2025-02-25)

UK Parliament Hansard data: debates/debates2025-02-25c conversation_20

Joe Powell:I warmly welcome the massive sanctions package announced yesterday by the Government, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that China should be taking a significantly more proactive role in preventing its companies from supplying Russia’s military? \p Stephen Doughty: I thank my hon. Friend for his praise and support for the action that the Foreign Secretary has just mentioned. This was our largest ever sanctions package since the start of Russia’s illegal and barbarous invasion. We and our G7 allies are absolutely clear on the principle that Russia must pay for the damage that it is causing to Ukraine, and we of course look at third country routes by which support is being given to Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine. As part of the package announced yesterday we are taking a number of steps in that regard, including with companies in China. \p Al Pinkerton: Last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), left open the possibility that the FCDO might revisit the issue of explicit carbon monoxide warnings on FCDO travel advisory pages—a change that we contend would have a cascading effect on the UK travel industry, drive up the use of carbon monoxide alarms and save lives of British travellers overseas. May I encourage the Front-Bench team to pick up this  issue in the name of my constituent, Hudson Foley, to ensure that the lives of British travellers overseas are kept safe? \p Hamish Falconer: I can confirm that I will be adding information to our dedicated page for independent travellers to highlight the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning globally. I shall be writing to Cathy Foley, who I was moved to meet, and to the hon. Member. \p Sonia Kumar: Gaza’s healthcare system has been devastated, and many civilians are in desperate need of treatment and specialist care, which is not available in Gaza itself. Will the Minister ensure that the Government continue to raise with Israel the importance of allowing safe passage out of Gaza for those children in need of urgent medical treatment? Will they consider additional evacuation routes for critically unwell children? \p Anneliese Dodds: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important question. We have been working closely with Egypt, which has sought to support many of those requiring medical assistance. Across Government we continue to look carefully at this issue, but Gazans need healthcare support in Gaza, and the UK Government have been supporting that. \p James Cleverly: As I am sure those on the Treasury Bench know, soft power and diplomacy are most effective when they are backed up by hard power. When will the Government commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence, to make sure that we have a real voice at the international table to encourage European countries to increase their defence spending? \p David Lammy: Why did the right hon. Gentleman not decide to do that? The Conservatives left it to this Government to get back to 2.5%, which we last had under a Labour Government. The right hon. Gentleman should have done it, and we are going to do it. \p Sadik Al-Hassan: I look forward to seeing relations between the UK and Iraq blossom in the years to come under this Labour Government. Will the Minister share the recent conversations that he has had with Iraqi counterparts on reducing barriers to trade, such as diverging trade regimes? \p Hamish Falconer: I was very pleased to meet the Iraqi Foreign Minister Dr Fuad Hussein during the official visit of Prime Minister Al Sudani to the UK from 14 to 16 January. During that visit our two Prime Ministers signed the landmark partnership and co-operation agreement, a wide-ranging treaty on trade and strategic co-operation, and announced a trade package worth up to £12.3 billion. \p Lindsay Hoyle: Before the Prime Minister’s statement, let me point out that the Government’s own ministerial code says that the text of statements should be provided in advance to the Opposition and the Speaker. It does not provide for the text to be redacted. I am particularly concerned by reports that some of the redacted information was provided to the media in advance. If correct, that is very discourteous to this House, and I take it very seriously. It could well have been leaked, in which case I hope that there will be an inquiry into what has happened. I ask the Prime Minister to look into what has happened and to report back to me and to the House as soon as possible. \p Keir Starmer: Let me begin by giving my word to this House that the statement was not given to the media. I will absolutely have an inquiry into that. I spoke to you, Mr Speaker, this morning. I would not be discourteous to you, the Leader of the Opposition or the House in that way. I give you that assurance from this Dispatch Box. I apologise to the Leader of the Opposition, and I will have that inquiry.

Three years since Russia launched its vile assault on Ukraine, I would like to address the international situation and the implications for Britain’s national security. In my first week as Prime Minister, I travelled to the NATO summit in Washington with a simple message: NATO and our allies could trust that this Government would fulfil Britain’s and, indeed, the Labour party’s, historic role of putting our collective security first. I spoke of my great pride in leading the party that was a founding member of NATO, the inheritor of the legacy of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, who not only stood behind Winston Churchill in wartime, but won the peace by establishing the great post-war order here and abroad.

It is a proud legacy, but in a world like ours it is also a heavy one, because the historical load that we must carry to fulfil our duty is not as light as it once was. We must bend our backs across this House, because these times demand a united Britain and we must deploy all our resources to achieve security.

Mr Speaker, as a young man, I vividly remember the Berlin Wall coming down. It felt as if we were casting off the shackles of history; a continent united by freedom and democracy. If you had told me then that in my lifetime we would see Russian tanks rolling into European cities again, I would not have believed you. Yet here we are in a world where everything has changed, because three years ago that is exactly what happened.

Britain can be proud of our response. British families opened their doors to fleeing Ukrainians, with the yellow and light blue fluttering on town halls and churches the length and breadth of the country. The Conservatives in government were robust in our response. I supported that in opposition and I applaud them for it now. We have built on that, bringing our support for Ukraine to a record level this year.

We should not pretend that any of this has been easy. Working people have already felt the cost of Russian actions through rising prices and bills. None the less, one of the great lessons of our history is that instability  in Europe will always wash up on our shores and that tyrants like Putin only respond to strength. Russia is a menace in our waters, in our airspace and on our streets. It has launched cyber-attacks on our NHS and—only seven years ago—a chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury.

We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace the economic instability and the threats to our security will only grow. And so, as the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus; a new era that we must meet—as we have so often in the past—together and with strength.

The fundamentals of British strategy are unchanged. I know that the current moment is volatile, but there is still no good reason why they cannot endure, so let me now spell out to the House exactly how we will renew them for these times. First, NATO is the bedrock of our security and will remain so. It has brought peace for 75 years. It is as important today as the day on which it was founded. Putin thought he would weaken NATO; he has achieved the exact opposite. It remains the organisation that receives the vast bulk of our defence effort in every domain, and that must continue.

Secondly, we must reject any false choice between our allies—between one side of the Atlantic and the other. That is against our history, country and party, because it is against our fundamental national interest. The US is our most important bilateral alliance. It straddles everything from nuclear technology to NATO, Five Eyes, AUKUS and beyond. It has survived countless external challenges in the past. We have fought wars together. We are the closest partners in trade, growth and security.

So this week, when I meet President Trump, I will be clear. I want this relationship to go from strength to strength. But strength in this world also depends on a new alliance with Europe. As I said in Paris last week, our commitment to European defence and security is unwavering, but now is the time to deepen it. We will find new ways to work together on our collective interests and threats, protecting our borders, bringing our companies together and seeking out new opportunities for growth.

Thirdly, we seek peace not conflict, and we believe in the power of diplomacy to deliver that end. That of course is most pressing in Ukraine. Nobody in this House or this country wants the bloodshed to continue—nobody. I have seen the devastation in Ukraine at first hand. What you see in places such as Bucha never leaves you. But for peace to endure in Ukraine and beyond, we need deterrence. I know that this House will endorse the principle of winning peace through strength, so we will continue to stand behind the people of Ukraine. We must ensure that they negotiate their future, and we will continue to put them in the strongest position for a lasting peace.

Fourthly, we must change our national security posture, because a generational challenge requires a generational response. That will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices, and through those choices, as hard as they are, we must also seek unity—a whole-society effort that will reach into the lives, the industries and the homes of the British people. I started this statement by recalling the era of Attlee and Bevin, and this year we will mark many anniversaries of that greatest generation. We must find courage in our history and courage in  who we are as a nation, because courage is what our own era now demands of us. So, starting today, this Government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. We will deliver our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, but we will bring it forward so that we reach that level in 2027 and we will maintain that for the rest of this Parliament. Let me spell that out. That means spending £13.4 billion more on defence every year from 2027.

However, we also face enemies that are sophisticated in cyber-attacks, sabotage and even assassination, so our intelligence and security services are an increasingly vital part of protecting both us and our allies. On top of the funding of 2.5% that I have just announced, we will recognise the incredible contribution of our intelligence and security services to the defence of our nation, which means that, taken together, we will be spending 2.6% on our defence from 2027.

We must go further still. I have long argued that in the face of ongoing and generational challenges, all European allies must step up and do more for our own defence. Subject to economic and fiscal conditions, and aligned with our strategic and operational needs, we will also set a clear ambition for defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament.

I want to be very clear: the nature of warfare has changed significantly. That is clear from the battlefield in Ukraine, so we must modernise and reform our capabilities as we invest. I equally want to be very clear that, like any other investment we make, we must seek value for money. That is why we are putting in place a new defence reform and efficiency plan, jointly led by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary.

This investment means that the UK will strengthen its position as a leader in NATO and in the collective defence of our continent, and we should welcome that role. It is good for our national security. It is also good for this Government’s defining mission to restore growth to our economy, and we should be optimistic about what it can deliver in those terms. But, in the short term, it can only be funded through hard choices. In this case, that means we will cut our spending on development assistance, moving from 0.5% of GNI today to 0.3% in 2027, fully funding our increased investment in defence.

I want to be clear to the House that this is not an announcement that I am happy to make. I am proud of our pioneering record on overseas development, and we will continue to play a key humanitarian role in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, tackling climate change and supporting multinational efforts on global health and challenges like vaccination. In recent years, the development budget was redirected towards asylum backlogs, paying for hotels, so as we are clearing that backlog at a record pace, there are efficiencies that will reduce the need to cut spending on our overseas programmes. None the less, it remains a cut, and I will not pretend otherwise. We will do everything we can to return to a world where that is not the case and to rebuild a capability on development. But at times like this, the defence and security of the British people must always come first. That is the No. 1 priority of this Government.

But it is not just about spending; our whole approach to national security must now change. We will have to ask British industry, British universities, British businesses and the British people to play a bigger part, and to use this to renew the social contract of our nation—the rights and responsibilities that we owe one another. The first test of our defence policy is of course whether it keeps our country safe, but the second should be whether it improves the conditions of the British people. Does it help provide the economic security that working people need? Because, ultimately, as Attlee and Bevin knew, that is fundamental to national security as well. We will use this investment as an opportunity. We will translate defence spending into British growth, British jobs, British skills and British innovation. We will use the full powers of the Procurement Act 2023 to rebuild our industrial base.

As the strategic defence review is well under way, and across Government we are conducting a number of other reviews relevant to national security, it is obvious that those reviews must pull together. So before the NATO summit in June we will publish a single national security strategy and bring it to this House, because, as I said earlier, that is how we must meet the threats of our age: together and with strength—a new approach to defence, a revival of our industrial base, a deepening of our alliances; the instruments of our national power brought together; creating opportunity, assuring our allies and delivering security for our country.

Mr Speaker, at moments like these in our past, Britain has stood up to be counted. It has come together. And it has demonstrated strength. That is what the security of our country needs now, and it is what this Government will deliver. I commend this statement to the House. \p Lindsay Hoyle: I call the Leader of the Opposition. \p Kemi Badenoch: I thank the Prime Minister for the partial copy of his statement. Now that I have heard the unredacted bits, I must welcome his response and his fulsome support for Ukraine.

This weekend marked a grim milestone: it is now three years since Putin’s invasion. The Conservative party stands resolutely with the people of Ukraine. Our hearts are with those still caught up in this conflict as we remember the many innocent lives lost. I will always be proud of the support that the last Conservative Government gave in the run-up to Putin’s invasion, and in the first crucial weeks and months of the war. We helped prevent Kyiv from falling and we supported Ukraine in regaining territory initially lost to Russia. But it is also true that, overall, the west has not done enough to support Ukraine.

As has been the case from the outset, it ultimately remains for Ukraine, as a proud and sovereign nation that has sacrificed so much to defend itself and the fundamental freedoms that we all hold dear, to decide its future. We want this terrible war to end, but Ukraine needs to be at the negotiating table. Like President Zelenksy, we hope for a lasting, reliable peace, but the west must continue to be intensely robust in the face of Putin’s aggression. The lesson of the past 20 years is clear: he only comes back for more.

The first duty of every Government is to protect their people. That means a strong state that stands up for our national interest. Our foreign policy should seek to support our national interest, which should always come first, so I am very pleased to hear the Prime Minister announce the increase to 2.5% by 2027. All of us on the Conservative Benches welcome that; we have all wanted to see more spending on defence. On the inclusion of the intelligence budget, will the Prime Minister confirm whether that means new money for the intelligence services? Does it mean that there will be new money in the next financial year?

The Prime Minister will know that I wrote to him at the weekend with suggestions on what we can do to help increase defence spending, so I welcome his announcement on repurposing money from the overseas development budget—that is absolutely right—and I look forward to him taking up my other suggestion of considering what we can do on welfare. He will know that we had a fully funded plan, and we urge him to take it up.

Having said that, can the Prime Minister say with confidence that 2.5% by 2027 is sufficient? We need to look at exactly how we fund this. He must not raise taxes further, as that would destroy our economy, and we need a strong economy to pay for strong defence. He cannot borrow more; we are already spending more on debt interest than on defence. We all know that he must make difficult decisions on spending, and he has our support in doing that.

In his statement, the Prime Minister also told us about his new value-for-money defence reform and efficiency plan. Does he agree that the first thing that must be looked at is the spending of billions of pounds of taxpayer money to lease back the defence base on Diego Garcia, which we currently own? Why is he still pursuing that deal? Earlier today, I made a speech about the realism that should drive our foreign policy. As part of that, he must scrap his disastrous plan to surrender the Chagos islands and have British taxpayers pay for the privilege.

The key difference between we Conservatives and the Labour party is that we know that we need a strong economy for defence. We need a serious plan to get the British economy growing again. We do not have that with the latest Budget from the Chancellor. Will the Prime Minister tell us whether there will be a fiscal event this spring, even though his Government are committed to only one fiscal event per year?

In summary, the Prime Minister made four points. I agree with him that NATO is a bedrock of our security, as I said this morning, and that the US is our most important bilateral relationship, but friends tell each other when they disagree. We agree on this issue; we know that Ukraine must be supported, and I share his concern about statements that have been made about President Zelensky. I agree with him about protecting security in Europe, and I welcome his continued strengthening of alliances, but we must do that through NATO, building on the joint expeditionary force approach. Of course, we agree that we need peace, with Ukraine agreed.

I do not necessarily agree with the Prime Minister’s change of the national security posture, because we have different views on that—I am a Conservative realist, not a progressive internationalist—but I want him to know that when he does the right thing, we will work with him in the national interest. \p Keir Starmer: May I first thank the Leader of the Opposition for her support in relation to today’s announcement and on Ukraine? That is important to the Government, to the House and, most of all, to the Ukrainians and President Zelensky. They want to see unity in our House—they value unity in our House—as they enter, after three years of conflict, a very difficult stage in the war with Russia and against Russian aggression. I hope and believe that we can maintain that unity in relation to Ukraine, as we have done for three years. I am very proud that this House has done that, notwithstanding a change of Government, for three long years—we will continue to do so.

The Leader of the Oppositions asks about the money for defence, security and intelligence. There was new money in the Budget in relation to that, but what I am doing here is in addition to the 2.5%, which is the increased defence spend as it has always been understood, to recognise that the nature of the threats to our county are different now, and that the security and intelligence services play a key part for us and our allies in our defence. That takes the total to 2.6%.

The Leader of the Opposition asks whether we will tax or borrow to pay for the 2.5%. The answer is no, which is why I have today set out precisely how we will pay for it, pound for pound. That has meant a difficult decision on overseas development—a very difficult decision, and not one that I wanted or am happy to take. But it is important that we explain where the money will come from in terms and today. I was only ever going to come to the House with a plan that had a timeline and a percentage in it, and an answer to the question, “How will you pay for it?” I would not have come to the House with a fanciful plan.

The Leader of the Opposition says that they had a plan—[Interruption.] She says, “Of course we did.” I have my views on that, but the Institute for Government said that the Conservatives’ pledge of 2.5% by 2030 did “not add up” and was “not a serious plan.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies called it “misleading and opaque”. I am not giving my view; I am giving the view of other bodies on the plan that the Conservatives put forward. They said that they would fund it by cutting the civil service, and then increased the civil service by 13,000. I am not prepared to operate in that way, which is why we have taken the difficult decision on overseas development today, to be absolutely clear on where the money is coming from.

In relation to the Leader of the Opposition’s final point on the approach that we take here and whether there is a difference between us, I hope not. What I have set out was NATO-first, as the bedrock of our security. I hope that is common ground, whatever we may call our respective positions. I also set out that we must not choose between the US and our European allies. That is what I fundamentally believe, and I will resist that choice. I hope that is common ground between us, notwithstanding the language that she uses, because it is important, not for exchanges over the Dispatch Boxes, but for the future defence and security of our country and of Europe. \p Lindsay Hoyle: I call the Chair of the Defence Committee. \p Tan Dhesi: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement on defence and security, because times are a-changing and we must all recognise  that these are pivotal moments not just for our nation’s security but for our Ukrainian friends, whom we must wholeheartedly support in their fight for survival.

In my various interactions with key stakeholders in my role as Chair of the Defence Committee, I have begun to realise that there is considerable consternation among our European allies about whether long-established and hard-earned alliances—rather than a short-term transactional approach—can still be relied on to secure lasting peace. Also, given the proposed reduction in the American presence on our continent, people are looking for leadership. I feel that this is our time to step forward as a nation and take the lead on defence and security matters on our continent.

Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister convey to President Trump and our American allies the anxieties of our European allies and the need to strengthen our transatlantic NATO alliance at this perilous time for Europe, and does he agree that he can be the person to take the lead on defence and security matters in Europe, coalescing with our NATO allies? \p Lindsay Hoyle: Order. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that I know he has a lot to say, but I have a lot of Members to get in, including other party leaders. \p Keir Starmer: I do agree that our alliances are important, and that is why NATO is the bedrock of our approach. It has been for many, many years and will continue to be. I do accept that European allies and the UK have to step up and do more. In our heart of hearts, I think across this House we have known that this moment was coming for the last three years. We have put that plan before the House, and of course, I will do everything I can to strengthen the alliance and the relationship between the US and the UK. It is a special relationship. It is a strong relationship. I want it to go from strength to strength. \p Lindsay Hoyle: I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats. \p Edward Davey: I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. Three years ago, Putin began his brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and as we watched Russian missiles rain down on Ukrainian cities, we feared he might have struck a decisive blow to Ukraine and its sovereignty, yet Putin underestimated the strength of the ideals we share with our Ukrainian friends of democracy, truth and liberty. He underestimated the courage and grit of Ukrainian soldiers, who have spent three years heroically resisting Putin’s war machine.

Britain stood together with our allies in support of Ukraine, and families up and down the country opened their doors wide for Ukrainian refugees, because we know that Ukraine’s fight for democracy and liberty is our fight, too. In this House, we stood strong together, and yet three years on, the future of Ukraine and security in Europe seems even more perilous. Then, Washington was clearly on our side, but now, the United States is voting with Russia, Belarus and North Korea in the United Nations. President Trump labels President Zelensky a “dictator”, but not Vladimir Putin.

After the second world war, Britain came together with allies around the world to establish NATO and, with America, agreed to underwrite security on this continent, recognising that a threat to the security of one nation was a threat to the security of all nations. The events of the past few days are clear: that era is over. We may be watching before our very eyes the betrayal of our Ukrainian allies by America, and with it, the potential betrayal of Europe and of Britain, too. We must respond. Now it is up to the United Kingdom to lead in Europe. As a nation, we must seize this moment.

It is for our national interest that Liberal Democrats have supported the Prime Minister’s proposals on Ukraine, including British troops joining a reassurance mission in Ukraine if a just settlement is reached. That is why we strongly support the Prime Minister raising defence spending to 2.5%, preferably using seized Russian assets to pay for extra defence support for Ukraine. We will scrutinise all aspects of the Government’s spending plans carefully, but I hope that moving at pace to 2.5% means that Ministers will shortly announce the reversal of the Conservatives’ short-sighted cut of 10,000 troops from our armed forces.

The Prime Minister is right: we must go further, so will he initiate talks between all parties in this House to establish the vital consensus needed to take us to spending 3% of GDP on defence as soon as possible? The Prime Minister will know that for months, we Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to seize frozen Russian assets, which amount to over £20 billion, and repurpose those funds for Ukraine’s defence. Will he take immediate steps to gather European leaders and begin the seizure of Russian assets, so that we can support Ukraine no matter what America does? Will he, on his trip to Washington, try to persuade President Trump to do the same—to make Russia pay?

The Prime Minister will know that the whole country will be willing him on, hoping that he might be able to persuade Donald Trump to change his mind on Ukraine. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches think he is right to try, but should that not work, will he be clear where the United Kingdom then stands? Will he make it clear that, if absolutely necessary, it will be with Ukraine and our European allies, not Putin and Trump? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support on Ukraine; it has been steadfast, and it has been across this House. For the same reasons that I gave to the Leader of the Opposition, that is important not just here but to those in Ukraine.

We do need to step up and lead in Europe—we have been saying that for a very long time. All European countries need to do more, and now is the moment to do so, but we need to do that together with the US, because what is needed more than anything is a lasting peace. A ceasefire that simply gives Putin the chance to regroup and to go again is in nobody’s interest. A lasting peace means that we must talk about issues such as security guarantees. We are prepared to play our part, as I have indicated, but I have also indicated that to be a security guarantee, it requires a US backstop—US support for that security guarantee. That is at the heart of the case I have been making for some time.

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, of the assets that have been seized already, the interest on those of £3 billion has already been committed to Ukraine, and  we are working with our European allies to see what more can be done in relation to the funding that will be necessary. Stepping up means stepping up on capability, on co-ordination and on funding, which is what we have done today with this statement. \p Lindsay Hoyle: I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee. \p Meg Hillier: I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and this strong commitment to defence spending. I welcome as well the work being done with the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary on ensuring that we get as much value as we can for each pound spent on delivering capability. Will the Prime Minister reaffirm his commitment to the parliamentary scrutiny of that spending, including on the most sensitive areas? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, of course; it is extremely important, and my hon. Friend knows that well. She is absolutely right to say that we must get value for money. This is a huge increase in defence spending. It is very important that it is used on the right capabilities in the right way, and that is why we intend to get a much better grip on the money that will be put in. \p Iain Duncan Smith: I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement. I personally think it is a start, not a finish—I think we will find that we have to raise defence spending further—but I welcome it none the less, and on behalf of all of this House and my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), I will support it.

The Prime Minister is due to go to Washington. One problem we have there is that they seem to have reached the conclusion that peace is simply the absence of war. Can he remind the President that a peace without justice, the right to freedom and choice in democracy is not peace, but a partial ceasefire? He might also remind the President that the last great test we faced united the United Kingdom and America, with Lady Thatcher and Ronald Reagan taking decisions that moved Europe in the right direction. Can he appeal to the President that, instead of running around making adverse comments, he should link hands with the United Kingdom to persuade the rest of Europe to step up, as we are now stepping up? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. The point he makes about a lasting peace and what it must be is really important. This is not just about stopping the fighting; it is about an enduring and lasting peace for Europe and, of course, the sovereignty of Ukraine—the sovereign ability to choose the alliances that Ukrainian people want, to choose their own Government and to choose how they defend themselves in conjunction with others. It is about the sovereignty of Ukraine, but it is also about the values and freedoms across Europe, including our values and freedoms. That is why this is such an important moment to ensure that NATO is as strong as it has been in the last 75 years as we go forward, and that the bond between us and the US is as strong as it has ever been. That has to be part of the case—the argument—and the way in which we have stepped up today and will continue to do so. \p Derek Twigg: I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, and particularly his commitment to accelerate the increase in defence spending, although I fear that we may have to visit the 3% target before the next Parliament. It is very important that we have a whole-society approach to defence. Will he be bringing forward a strategy to make that happen, particularly around the great need to improve our reservist forces? \p Keir Starmer: It does have to be a whole-society response, which is why I set that out in my statement in the House, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. Of course it has to be a driver of industrial growth and our industrial strategy. \p Stephen Flynn: Aside from a few of Putin’s poodles, who are not in their seats in the Chamber today, we are of course united in our support for the people of Ukraine, and in wishing the Prime Minister well in his discussions with the President of the United States later this week. But I am afraid that is where the unity ends, because while we support increasing defence spending, we cannot support the populist playbook of cutting foreign aid. Indeed, that position was shared and agreed with by the Foreign Secretary just a matter of days ago, when he said that it would be a “big strategic mistake” that would allow China to step in. Why was the Foreign Secretary wrong, and the Prime Minister right? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support on the question of Ukraine, which is important. I reassure him that the decision that I have taken today on development aid is not an ideological one. I absolutely understand its importance—it is a difficult and painful decision, but a necessary one. He talks about choice. SNP Members welcomed the biggest settlement since devolution in the Budget, but they voted against it because they could not take a choice. The right hon. Gentleman welcomes the increase in defence spending, but he does not want to say how he will fund it. Grown-up choices about the future of Europe require grown-up decisions and choices, and that is what we have done. \p Nick Smith: Instability in Europe washes up on our shores, and I accept the hard decision that the Prime Minister has made to invest in defence, which means difficult decisions on international development. Can we please invest more in cyber, given the disinformation and cyber-attacks that our country faces on a daily basis? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that because cyber is one of the tools for warfare these days. That is why we increased funding in the Budget, and why I have adjusted the 2.5% to 2.6% in the case presented to the House today. \p Andrew Mitchell: I agree entirely with the strategic direction that the Prime Minister has set out. Defence and security must come first, but he does have choices about how he funds that important uplift. In the last Parliament, he and I voted together against balancing the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. Does he still think that vote was right? \p Keir Starmer: I am proud of that vote at the time, and proud of the work that our country has done on development. This is not a decision that I want to make, and I absolutely want us to get back to more funding on overseas development and increasing those capabilities. Some of that will be helped if, as we are doing, we get the asylum backlog down and stop using that money to pay for hotels, which is not what it is intended for. This has been a difficult decision. The right hon. Gentleman knows how much I value overseas development and how important it is, but I thought, and think, that the most important thing today is to be clear about the commitment we are making on defence, to spell out the reasons that we are making those decisions, and to set out penny and pound exactly how it will be funded. I would not come to the House with a plan that was not credible and not costed, because that would be far worse for our country, but I accept the tenor of what he says about the importance of the issue. \p Alex Baker: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for the leadership that he has shown in these uncertain times. As the Member of Parliament for the home of the British Army, I know that this is hugely welcome news for my constituency and that my community is ready to serve. What will the Prime Minister do to help to create jobs in the defence sector in my community? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Given the make-up of her constituency and constituents, they are hardwired for this. This is an important obligation that we must rise to, but it is also an opportunity to ensure that the jobs that will be generated are British jobs, with British skills, in all our constituencies. We will endeavour to ensure that that is the case. \p Helen Maguire: We are pleased to hear the announcement that the Government will increase defence spending to 2.5%, but we are still waiting for the strategic defence review to be completed, as without that we are in the dark. Will the SDR be announced soon, and if not, will the Prime Minister outline how the additional money will be spent? \p Keir Starmer: The SDR is advanced and I will come to the House with it as soon as we can. I want to make sure that we have properly identified the challenges and capabilities. Obviously, we have put the funding forward today. We will do that as soon as we can, and when we do, it will be a credible plan for the House. \p Zubir Ahmed: I thank the Prime Minister for his tireless efforts to bring security to Ukraine, because its security is our security. Does he agree that that is possible only because we are one United Kingdom, and that that strength, that solidarity, is possible only because our four nations work together? Does he agree that those who attempt to fragment that Union in these perilous times do us great harm? \p Keir Starmer: I do agree with that. As the United Kingdom we have always stood up in moments such as this, and we stand up again as the United Kingdom and are proud to do so. This is an important moment and a juncture after three years of a conflict,  and the whole House will be aware of the potential consequences of decisions in coming weeks. It is a time for us to pull together. \p Julian Lewis: President Trump says that he wants his legacy to be that of a peacemaker. In his difficult conversations with the President in a few days’ time, will the Prime Minister remind him that the reason the enforced division of Czechoslovakia before the war was a step on the road to disaster, but the division of Germany at the end of the war did not lead to world war three, was that the western half of Europe at the end of world war two was not demilitarised? If there is to be a stable Ukraine after any such enforced division, there must be military protection for the unoccupied half of Ukraine. \p Keir Starmer: The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about peace. It is what everybody wants, not least the Ukrainians, but it must be a lasting peace and not a temporary ceasefire. I agree that that means it needs security guarantees. The configuration of that needs to be agreed, but the security guarantees must be sufficient to deter any further aggression. Otherwise it will be a ceasefire, and that would be the worst of outcomes for the whole of Europe. \p Calvin Bailey: I thank the Prime Minister for his leadership and the announcement today, committing us to 2.6% of GDP on defence spending, and 3% beyond that. That is in stark contrast to the 14 years of erosion of defence spending, the hollowing out of our services, and the service life that resulted. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the reforms put forward by the Defence Secretary are essential to delivering deterrence and to preventing further acts of Russian brutal imperialist aggression in Europe? \p Keir Starmer: The reforms are really important. The strategic review is very important, and the funding is very important. This is a moment when we must step up and play our full part in the defence of our country and the defence of Europe. I have already commented on the plan that the Conservative party put forward at the election. I have not quoted my words; I have quoted the words of the Institute for Government, which said—[Interruption.] Well, I would say what I think, but what the Institute for Government said was perfectly right. The plan was not properly funded and it was not a credible plan. We have put a credible plan before the House, and I am glad it has been welcomed. \p Liz Saville-Roberts: Plaid Cymru stands firm with the need to safeguard Ukraine’s sovereignty, because international security is also national security. However, the UK will now cut the already diminished foreign aid budget to fund military spending. National security calls for building peace, as well as for armed forces. Given the importance that overseas aid plays in preventing conflict, building democracy and curbing warmongering tyrants, to paraphrase the Foreign Secretary, surely cutting foreign aid too is a massive strategic and moral mistake? \p Keir Starmer: The right hon. Lady is right to raise the importance of overseas development—I have said that from the Dispatch Box a number of times—but  this is a moment when we have to step up and increase our defence spending. Of course, everybody in this House would wish that was not the situation. We have had a peace dividend for many years, but that has come to an end. We have to step up and our first duty is to keep the country safe, which requires a credible plan. I accept that it is a difficult plan—this is not a decision that I wanted to make—but it is a credible plan for the defence and security of our country and of Europe. \p Richard Quigley: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. I agree with him that it is the beginning, not the end, of the process, but does he agree that it is not just how much money we spend, but how well we spend it? Will he join me in thanking all our armed forces personnel for the commitment they show day in, day out to defending our nation? \p Keir Starmer: I agree with both those propositions, and about what we spend and how we spend it. Speaking for myself, the Government and, I am sure, the whole House, we thank our armed services for what they do on our behalf, day in, day out. \p John Glen: It is without doubt that enduring peace is achieved only if we have enduring security arrangements, so I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement on defence expenditure and the commitment to it. However, I reiterate my observation, and the observation of others, on the way that that money is spent. For a generation, we have been complacent. There is significant dysfunctionality in the way that industry works with Government on the procurement and delivery of defence capabilities in this country. I urge him to keep his Defence Secretary in place for the duration of this Parliament, so that we can find some common purpose, across this House, and deliver enduring reforms that stand the test of time. Treasury after Treasury has found it impossible to get to grips with defence expenditure—we must achieve that in this Parliament. \p Keir Starmer: The Defence Secretary has just asked me whether he could reply to that question. The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Procurement and the grip on defence spend has not been in the right place, and we have not used our businesses in the way that we could have done in the past. I gently say that the past 14 years might have been a good period to have got to grips with that, but we need to get to grips with it now. I think that will be welcomed by the whole House, because we need to do that. \p Louise Jones: I and many of my colleagues started our careers in the shadow of Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine, back in 2014. We knew then what Putin was capable of and what Putin intended to do. However, our service was marked by swingeing cuts from the Conservative Government that left our armed forces lacking key capabilities. There is an old saying that if you want peace, prepare for war, so will the Prime Minister assure me that the extra cash will be well spent to cover those capabilities and to take advantage of the new technologies we desperately need? \p Keir Starmer: May I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her service? She is absolutely right that this money must be well spent on the capability that we need, and it will be. \p Sammy Wilson: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and I wish him well as he goes to America to persuade the Americans to side with democracy, rather than vote with dictators. There will be a long lead-in time before we see the effects of today’s announcement. Given that and the overstretched commitments of our armed forces, how will he give assurances to the Ukrainians that Britain will be able to supply arms and personnel to defend any peace agreement that is reached? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support. On the question of security guarantees, intense discussions are going on about how that would look and what that might involve. I am absolutely confident that we can play our full part. I will not disclose details to the House for reasons that he will understand, but I am confident that we can and will play our full part in whatever security guarantees may be needed. They will, of course, be with US backing, which is important if they are to be proper guarantees. \p Alice Macdonald: I welcome the uplift in defence spending but, as the Prime Minister has recognised, there has been a difficult decision about our aid budget. Like many hon. Members, I have seen at first hand the impact of the aid budget, not only on tackling poverty but on our own stability and prosperity. I welcome what the Prime Minister has said so far, but will he reassure us that our commitment remains to get back to 0.7% of GDP for overseas aid, as soon as fiscal circumstances allow? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, I want to see that. Notwithstanding the difficult decision we have taken today, I reassure the House that it is important that vital issues, such as those in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, are prioritised for reasons that are obvious to Members across the House. \p Ellie Chowns: Members across the House recognise the need to invest more and to invest differently in defence and security, but it is unbelievably counterproductive and short-sighted to fund that by slashing aid to the poorest and most fragile countries, or by squeezing already stretched departmental budgets. Why will the Prime Minister not fund this by increasing taxes on the most wealthy, rather than placing the burden on the poorest? \p Keir Starmer: I do not think the plans put forward by the hon. Lady, as far as I have seen them, are realistic. To make a commitment such as the one we have made, we have to put forward a credible, costed plan in which we can say with certainty precisely where the money is coming from. That is why we have taken the difficult decision that we have taken today. \p Rupa Huq: The Prime Minister’s statement hits the nail on the head, unlike the rantings of J. D. Vance on European freedom of speech at the Munich security conference. I know the  statement will be particularly welcome at the Ealing ex-servicemen’s club, so will the Prime Minister recommit to our veterans, to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and to organisations like the Army cadet centre in Acton and the Territorial Army reservists in Wood Lane, either of which would welcome a visit, for those who have served our nation and those who will do so in the future? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, I am happy to make that commitment. I ask my hon. Friend to carry that message to her constituents, along with my thanks and those of the Government and the House. \p Bernard Jenkin: When the Prime Minister flies off to Washington, he will go with the confidence that this House and the whole country are behind him and wish him well in that very difficult meeting. We know that this country and our continent face possibly the most dangerous moments that we have experienced since the height of the cold war. I welcome his statement on increasing defence spending, which some of us would say is a couple of decades overdue. Will he accept that the benchmark for the success of the defence review is not some arbitrary percentage of what we are spending, but whether we are spending whatever is necessary to give back to our armed forces the warfighting capability that is the only real deterrence that the Russians will respect? I very much doubt that 2.5% or 3% will be enough; I do not say that as a criticism, but because, as a nation, we must be prepared for that. \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his sentiments. At a moment like this, it is important that I am able to carry the House with me as we undertake the next stage of these discussions about the security and defence of Europe. It is a very important generational moment, and this House and this country have always come together and stood up at moments like this. I know he has long been a supporter of increased defence spending and capability, and of the notion that there must be a warfighting capability. He is right about that, which is why we have made the decision we have today. \p John Slinger: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and his strong leadership. Does he agree that as we rightly reassert the concept of taking responsibility—of responsibility being taken by our own military, people and economy, and by our friends on the continent of Europe—we must also reassert the responsibility of all countries to defend the international rules-based system, which has at its core the concept that bullies must not get away with invading their neighbours? If they do, not only will we dishonour the bravery and sacrifice of our Ukrainian friends, but our collective security will be weakened. \p Keir Starmer: Two of those rules-based systems are fundamental: the UN charter and the NATO framework and all the articles in it. Those are hugely important rules-based frameworks that we must absolutely adhere to. I wrote many times about the UN Security Council as a lawyer. In my first appearance at the Security  Council, I was sitting at the table with a country that was in clear violation of the charter, and I did not feel at all comfortable. \p Victoria Collins: I have distinct memories of, three years ago, helping my Ukrainian friends and colleagues flee the country as tanks came towards their homes. Since then, people across Harpenden, Berkhamsted and Tring have opened their doors to those from Ukraine, but the hope that they once had has turned to fear of what is happening globally. Can the Prime Minister assure the British people that when he speaks to President Trump, he will push for lasting peace, and highlight the importance of working with our European colleagues? \p Keir Starmer: I thank, through the hon. Lady, everybody in this country who has opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees. I am very proud of the fact that we have done that, and that the Ukrainian flag flies in so many places across the country. I can reassure her constituents that this announcement today and the approach that we are taking are to ensure that peace continues, but for peace to continue, we have to put ourselves and Ukraine in the strongest possible position, and this is a step along that road. \p Alistair Strathern: It is shameful that in such a volatile world, for far too long, conversations around defence spending have involved a lot of hot air and not much hard action. Colleagues from across the House will today have to recognise that the Prime Minister has changed that, with a clear, funded and needed plan for investing in our defence. Supply chains are so important to security, so he will recognise, as I do, that what matters is not just what we spend, but where we spend it. How will he make sure that our whole Government are united in the effort to build up our domestic supply chain capacity, when it comes to key defence assets? \p Keir Starmer: This is where the industrial strategy and growth are so important, because as we move to greater defence spend, it is vital that we ensure that supply chains are in this country, as far as they can be, and that they lead to British, well-paid and secure jobs. We know that the defence sector already provides many well-paid jobs across the country. I want more. \p Several hon. Members: rose— \p Lindsay Hoyle: Can I say to those who were late, please do not embarrass the Chair by standing? \p Simon Hoare: Almost on that point, Mr Speaker, what an abdication of responsibility and duty it is that not a single member of the Reform party is able to ask a question of the Prime Minister this afternoon on these precious issues of defence and security. They are treated with a very different level of seriousness by Members on the Conservative and Government Benches.

Many have asked the Prime Minister about the use of Russian frozen assets. Anybody who has studied the issue with regard to Libya will know just how complicated international law and convention has made the defrosting of frozen assets so that they can be put to proper use. In his discussions in Washington and with the other European leaders, can the Prime Minister press for urgent,  collaborative and international reform of those rules, so that those frozen assets can be used to help the Ukrainians and their military to defeat Russian aggression? \p Keir Starmer: The point that the hon. Gentleman raises is important. The process is very complicated, for reasons that he will understand. Obviously we have been able to use some of the interest on those frozen assets, which has proved valuable to Ukraine, but we need to work with our European colleagues and to collaborate on other legitimate, proper ways to raise further funding, and we will continue to do that with our allies. \p Matthew Patrick: I welcome the statement from the Prime Minister. This is a major commitment to our defence; I think it will be heard across the world and welcomed by our allies, particularly those facing Russian or Iranian aggression. How will the Prime Minister ensure that British businesses, which are so crucial to our defence, are supported in their important task? \p Keir Starmer: That has to be done through the industrial strategy and the growth strategy that we will put in place, but it is vital that this is seen as not just a duty and responsibility, which it is, but as an opportunity for British businesses, and for well-paid, secure jobs, which are so vital to so many communities. \p Dave Doogan: The Prime Minister knows that he can rely on the support of the SNP when it comes to efforts to restore Ukrainian sovereignty in the face of Russian aggression, despite the baseless rhetoric from those on the Benches behind him. I would like him to acknowledge that.

I welcome the Prime Minister raising defence expenditure to 2.5%, albeit by 2027, which will be three years after the election, despite the pledge being in the Labour party’s manifesto. However, it cannot be right to balance the books at a cost to the poorest in global society, when there is a Government Budget of £1.1 trillion. When he goes to Washington on Thursday and gets his pat on the back from the President of the United States, will he spare a thought for those—predominantly women and children—who will suffer immeasurably, and some of whom will die, as a result of his decision today? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on Ukraine. The First Minister has set out that support in clear terms in recent days; that is important, and I acknowledge it. We have had to make difficult decisions, but as he and the House know, wherever there is war and conflict, it is the poor and the poorest who are hit hardest. There is no easy way through this, but we have to ensure that we win peace through strength, because anything other than peace will hit the very people the hon. Gentleman has identified harder than anybody else on the planet. That is why it is so important that we have taken the decision we have today. \p Rachel Taylor: National security is the first duty of any Government, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement, and his strong leadership today. This Government are rising to the challenge of investing in our defence, whereas the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) has said that Vladimir Putin is the leader he admires the most, and  that NATO provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Does the Prime Minister share my concern that those comments play right into the hands of Britain’s enemies? \p Keir Starmer: You do not show patriotism by fawning over Putin. \p Andrew Murrison: No decent Government cut international development budgets lightly. The Prime Minister’s discomfort is plain for all to see and will be shared across the House, but will he look at other things that perhaps present easier choices—in particular, his choice to spend billions of pounds on Mauritius? Will he repurpose that money in defence of our armed forces? \p Keir Starmer: Obviously in the short term, we have to make decisions between the here and now and the commitment to 2.5% in 2027. Having looked at the available options, this was the choice that had to be made, and that I think would have been made by any serious Prime Minister making the commitment that I have made today. Of course, we need to look at other things as we go forward from here. Many people across the House have mentioned, and I have set out, the ambition of getting to 3%, but I will put forward only credible costed plans to this House, not fantasy figures. [Interruption.] The Opposition chunter away, but this is a moment for a serious, costed plan. It is not the time for ridiculous, uncosted plans. \p Jeevun Sandher: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I think the entire House agrees that our safety and that of our allies depends on showing Putin that we have the resolve and resources to defeat him. We are far more prosperous than he is: European NATO’s GDP is $24.5 trillion, and Russia’s is only $2 trillion. Clearly, the matter before us is converting those resources into fighting forces and matériel in the years ahead. Can the Prime Minister assure me that the strategic defence review and our defence industrial strategy will ensure that we have long-term orders that give us the capacity that we need, as well as secure supply chains, inputs such as steel and, of course, the ability to scale rapidly if we need to rearm? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for raising those points. They are all important, and of course, they have to be hardwired into the work we do as we go forward. \p Luke Evans: The Prime Minister will have the support of both sides of this House when he goes to see President Trump on Thursday. If he fails to encourage the US to become the backstop for Ukraine, though, no matter how much he increases spending in the next couple of years, there will be difficulty. What conversations is the Prime Minister having about a backstop for Europe to make sure that Ukraine gets that support? \p Keir Starmer: I am not going to pre-empt the discussions I will have, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I absolutely believe that we should play our full part in any security guarantees—if that is what happens; we do not even know whether we will get to that stage—but I also absolutely think there needs to be US backing for that, because I do not think a security guarantee will be operative without that backing. \p Mark Ferguson: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, because although difficult decisions have had to be taken today, the alternative is inaction—which, of course, is also a decision. Does the Prime Minister agree that the lesson of history is that Ukraine’s survival and its defence are completely indivisible from our own? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, I do. That is why I say that this is not just about the sovereignty of Ukraine, but about European defence and security and our own defence and security. We have already paid a heavy price in this country—the contribution we have made has had an effect on our cost of living, our energy prices and so much else—but this is fundamental. It is about our values; it is about our freedom; and it is about understanding who Putin is, and what his ambitions are. We must never forget that. \p Alison Bennett: With some of our European allies likening our predicament in 2025 to that of 1938, the increase in defence spending announced today by the Prime Minister is welcome, but I am concerned that it will come too late. Will the Prime Minister look at Liberal Democrat proposals to increase the digital services tax, which would raise £3 billion this year? \p Keir Starmer: I do not accept the argument that this has come too late. It has come at the point at which we are able to put a credible, costed plan before the House. We have known for three years that this moment was going to come, and the last few weeks have accelerated this and made it more urgent, which is why I have made the statement I have today. \p Jonathan Brash: I welcome the Prime Minister’s leadership today. He is undertaking the first duty of any leader, which is the defence of the nation, and reiterating the fundamental British value that our country opposes fascists, and never appeases them. He rightly talked about renewing the social contract with the British people when it comes to jobs, skills and industry. Does he agree that if we are to do that, it must reach every part of our country, including areas that I represent that are far too often left behind? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, I do. We must rise to that challenge. Many of the well-paid, skilled jobs in the defence sector are found across the whole United Kingdom. We need to ensure that there are more of those well-paid, skilled jobs across the whole United Kingdom. \p Ben Spencer: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and for acknowledging that although what has been said today is very important, he and the Government will need to come back to us on getting towards 3%. In response to an earlier question, the Prime Minister said that the peace dividend is gone. Does he agree that we also need to look at welfare spending, given that in the current circumstances, no serious country can spend more on welfare than on defence? \p Keir Starmer: I do agree with that. The last Government let welfare spending spiral by an additional £30 billion. Some 2.8 million people are out of work  because they cannot go to work due to some health-related issue. That is a very high number. It is out of control, and we have to get it back under control. \p John Grady: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement, with which I agree. Does he agree that Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin showed that the defence of the United Kingdom and Europe against totalitarianism is at the core of this House’s values and those of our party? Does he also agree that what we can learn from their great political lives is that we will face very many difficult public spending decisions over the next decade, and that our moral duty as a Government is to take those decisions, however difficult or heartbreaking they may be? \p Keir Starmer: I agree with my hon. Friend. These are difficult decisions with very real consequences, which I acknowledge. As an earlier contributor said, though, the alternative to action is inaction, and in the light of the last three years and particularly the last few weeks, inaction would be completely the wrong thing for our country and our continent. \p Jim Allister: I absolutely agree with the Prime Minister that this is an important moment for our nation, and I welcome the rebalancing of expenditure towards defence. However, does he agree that the success of our national security posture will be judged not by percentages but by the strength of the deterrent that we build, and is it his abiding commitment to be unwavering in building such a deterrent? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, it is, because I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that it is the strength of our deterrent that counts in a moment like this. I am very proud of our armed forces—those who have provided so much for so long—but now is a time to ask more of them and to step up. \p Gordon McKee: The Prime Minister spoke about the threat that Russia poses in our waters. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a piece of undersea cable that had been cut, almost certainly by a Russian vessel. What more can the Government do to protect Britain’s undersea infrastructure from foreign attack? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. It is a bit like cyber: the way in which conflict, war and aggression are demonstrated these days is changing, and we must protect our vital assets, including the cables under the sea. I have had extensive conversations with European allies and NATO about how we can better protect that infrastructure. \p Lincoln Jopp: I have been to war three times, each time working for an American general—General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf war, the outstanding David Petraeus in the second Gulf war, and General Richard Mills of the US Marine Corps in Afghanistan. One of the lessons that keeps coming up after those wars is that we have to prepare for the fight that we do not want to have. I absolutely welcome the Prime Minister’s statement today. As well as sending the Chancellor into the new defence reform and efficiency team, I encourage him to take a personal interest in the way that this money is spent, in order to prepare us for the fight that we do not want to have. \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his service to his country, and he is absolutely right that we have to prepare for the fight that we do not want to have. I can assure him that as Prime Minister, I have a very keen personal interest, duty and responsibility in all these matters. \p Shaun Davies: I welcome the statement from my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister. In places such as Telford—which has a proud defence sector—companies, communities and supply chains need certainty. British taxpayers will be demanding that their money is used to enable British-based companies to support our British troops around the world. Can my right hon. and learned Friend assure me that each and every pound will be diverted to British industry or British-based industries, enabling them to support our interests around the world? \p Keir Starmer: I certainly want that to be the case wherever we can. That is why we will have the plan for reform and efficiency, but that needs to be translated into British skills and secure British jobs in every constituency across the land. \p Jeremy Corbyn: It is disappointing that the Prime Minister’s statement did not include any reference to the United Nations, or a pathway to end the dreadful conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Clearly, his statement will have a massive effect on the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world through a cut in overseas aid budgets, but what effect will it have on the poorest people in this country—for example, those disadvantaged by the two-child benefit cap or by the housing crisis that so many face? The Prime Minister says that tough decisions are coming up; what is going to be the effect of the increase in defence spending on the poorest people in this country? \p Keir Starmer: The right hon. Gentleman says I did not mention the UN. The UN charter is at the heart of this, because Russia is in breach of it. Russia is an aggressor that has invaded another country and is occupying part of that country, and it will go further if it is encouraged down that line. That is why we need to take these decisions. It is the first duty of Government to keep our country safe and secure. That is a duty I take extremely seriously. The poorest people in this country would be the first to suffer if the security and safety of our country was put in peril. \p Mark Sewards: The Prime Minister is absolutely right to say that NATO is the bedrock on which we found our alliance. He is absolutely right to say that we can only achieve peace through strength, and he is absolutely right to cut the foreign development budget to pay for a £13.4 billion increase in defence spending. It is a difficult decision, but there is nothing more important than the defence and security of the British people. What conversations has the Prime Minister had or does he hope to have with our European allies about their defence spending? Does he hope to see increases across the continent in the future? \p Keir Starmer: As my hon. Friend may know, I have had extensive discussions with all our European allies. Those have been particularly intense over the past three or four weeks, and I will continue to have those discussions, because it is right to say that Europe and the United Kingdom need to step up. We need to do that alongside our allies. That means capability, co-ordination and spending. The best way, in my view, to do that is in a collegiate, collaborative way, working with our allies. That is what I have been doing. \p Bradley Thomas: In a world where our adversaries are intent on blunting our national security and prosperity, I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and thank him for his commitment to increase defence spending. Can he update the House on what actions the Government are taking to discourage BRICS nations and other emergent high-growth economies from advertently or inadvertently doing anything that would assist Russia in its pursuit of its invasion in Ukraine? \p Keir Starmer: This is a really important issue, and it is important that, as well as sanctions, we bear down on those providing assistance to Russia, whether that is countries or individual businesses. We shall continue to do so, working with allies. \p Kevin Bonavia: My right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister is absolutely right to say that this is a generational moment for this country’s security. I pay tribute to this generation’s armed forces and all those who work in the defence sector, including in Stevenage, where they are refitting the Storm Shadows for use by Ukraine for its security and our security. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the increase in defence spending he has announced today will, done properly, also help the wider economy? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend’s constituents working in Stevenage for their important work. It is important that we make sure that this spending is measured in jobs and secure jobs across the country. \p Wera Hobhouse: Last night, I attended a concert in Bath abbey called “Together We Stand”. The Ukrainian deputy ambassador was there, and he particularly praised the direct link that my Bath council had formed with the city of Oleksandriya. It has formed such strong people-to-people contact, and it is enduring and provides direct support. What more can the Government do to encourage other councils to form these direct links to Ukrainian communities? \p Keir Starmer: I am pleased to hear about that direct link. I think that people-to-people contact is important, both in relation to our appreciation and understanding of what is going on in Ukraine and in relation to the resilience of Ukrainians. I support any such initiatives. \p Joe Powell: I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. In particular, I know that the Ukrainian forces on the frontlines will be reassured today. Clearly, the aid spending decision will not have been taken lightly, but following reductions at the US Agency for International Development, it  does mean tens of billions out of the global aid system, which could be exploited by Russia and China. Will the Prime Minister consider a deadline for ending the accounting of asylum costs to the aid budget, which is currently 28%, or £4.2 billion of money that should be used on aid spending overseas? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. It is a really difficult decision, and it is important that we make clear that we remain committed to the work we are doing in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. It is important, as he rightly says, that we get the asylum numbers down and the processing done so that we can end the ridiculous use of money—money that should be for overseas aid—on hotel bills in this country. That spiralled under the last Government. \p Ben Obese-Jecty: As a veteran, I welcome the move to 2.5%. It is a milestone on the right track to increasing defence spending to 3.0% and probably beyond, particularly given that defence chiefs are reported to have requested 2.65%.

With increasing defence spending and suggestions that British forces may be involved in a peacekeeping mission, along with ongoing support to Ukraine, it is reassuring to see that we are not prepared to acquiesce to Russian belligerence. With that in mind, as the Prime Minister prepares to meet President Trump, will he clarify with the President why the US sided with Russia and North Korea yesterday, voting against the European resolution that Russia should withdraw from Ukraine at the UN General Assembly? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his service. Our position on the UN resolution was clear from the way we voted yesterday. I think that sends a very powerful signal of where we stand, and that is with Ukraine. \p Jacob Collier: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement today, his commitment to 2.5% defence spending and his continued engagement with our international partners. As we are a proud maritime nation that is facing threats from Russian interference with undersea cables and from incursion into our waters by the shadow fleet, does he agree that now is the time to bolster our Royal Navy? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, I think it is important that we bolster across our forces. There are threats on land, threats in the air, threats at sea and, indeed, threats under the sea. It is important that we can meet all those threats. \p Calum Miller: I welcome this important statement from the Prime Minister. The Liberal Democrats support an increase in defence budgets and the leadership in Europe that the Prime Minister has described. The Prime Minister spoke about the need for unity and a whole-society approach. He will have heard the concerns from across the House about the way he is proposing to fund this increase in the defence budget, and the deep concern that it will create opportunities for our adversaries, Russia and China, around the world. Will he undertake to meet other parties to build the consensus behind the funding of  2.5% and then 3%, so that we can maintain the unity and the national purpose that he has so eloquently described? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Member for his support and that of his party. That is important at a moment like this. So far as the funding of the 2.5% is concerned, that has been set out today. The commitment on the ambition to get to 3% is something that we need to talk about across this House. I will work with all parties on any issue of the security and defence of our country. \p Chris McDonald: The Prime Minister has delivered a powerful statement today, and I know that his unwavering commitment to the defence of the realm will be greatly appreciated by my constituents in Stockton North. He mentioned the industrial strategy. Does he agree that we need to start immediately to mobilise our steel, chemicals and shipbuilding industries, working with regional groups such as the Teesside defence and innovation cluster to ensure that we build the capability that we need for our defence supply chains at home? \p Keir Starmer: The industrial strategy and steel within it are vitally important, as my hon. Friend and the House will know. Steel and our ability to manufacture it are vital to our security, and we must do everything to ensure that is preserved into the future. \p John Cooper: Scotland wants to play its full part in this great national endeavour at this moment of peril, yet, almost incredibly, tomorrow the Scottish Parliament will discuss stripping defence companies of state funding. It is remarkable. The measure may not pass, of course, and I certainly hope it does not. Will the defence industrial strategy take into account what is happening in Scotland, where certain elements seem to be siding with other national interests, so that we can protect our defence industry and this great country? \p Keir Starmer: Across the country, it is important that we stand by our defence sector and enhance our defence sector. We should thank those who work in it for what they are doing. Today’s announcement will mean that there is more yet to do. \p Luke Murphy: I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, this Government’s unwavering support for Ukraine and this very necessary decision to increase defence spending. As someone whose close family has served in our armed forces, I know that over the years as a country, we have not always provided our servicemen and women with the equipment and support that they deserve. Can the Prime Minister reassure the House that this funding will be used to ensure that our servicemen and women are provided with that equipment and that support and with respect, given that they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country? \p Keir Starmer: Yes, that is hugely important, and we will ensure that we do so. I had a family member who served and whose ship went down, and I will never forget the agony that my mother went through until she knew for sure that he was safe. That is what is on the line each and every day for our armed services. \p Robin Swann: I thank the Prime Minister for his very strong statement. He has talked of a national security position, a whole-society response and a time for us all to pull together. May I ask him to ensure that Northern Ireland businesses are part of that national response? May I also ask the Government to recognise and support the strategic and long-term importance of the Aldergrove military base and RAF station in Northern Ireland, which is able to contribute to not only our national but our international defence? Will the Prime Minister ask the Secretary of State for Defence to meet me to discuss those two issues? \p Keir Starmer: The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the question of Northern Ireland. It is important for this to be a whole-United Kingdom effort and contribution, and for us to ensure that those opportunities are there across the whole United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. I will of course ask the Defence Secretary for that meeting, and I am sure he will agree to it. \p David Taylor: I spent all last week in Ukraine, and had the opportunity to meet a Defence Minister and a number of soldiers on the frontline. The Defence Minister painted a bleak picture of the situation there, including the fact that Russian production of arms continues to go up and up and up. Meanwhile, the soldiers I spoke to on the frontline are facing unimaginable challenges, and need much more resources to win this fight. I strongly welcome the announcement that defence spending will reach 2.5%, that support for Ukraine will be increased and that defence spending will reach 3% in the future, because I am convinced that we face an existential crisis in the world.

However, as one who founded the Labour Campaign for International Development, I am pained by today’s other news, and I hope we can get back on track for 0.7% as soon as possible. In that spirit, may I draw the Prime Minister’s attention to the last Labour Government’s record of thinking of innovative and different ways of securing development finance, and may I ask him to meet me, and other Labour Members with development experience, to consider alternative ways of financing support for development, such as special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund and more debt relief? \p Keir Starmer: I thank my hon. Friend for his commitment to international development. He is absolutely right about that, and we will of course work across the House on alternative and innovative ways in which to support development around the world. \p Gregory Stafford: I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcements wholeheartedly, and encourage him to get to 3% as soon as possible. However, we do not just need a monetary value; we need to know how and where the money will be spent, and that will be done through the strategic defence review, which gives assurance to our allies, deterrence to our enemies and, most important, confidence in our troops. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the SDR will be published in the spring—in a couple of weeks’ time—or will it be delayed until June, as the statement seemed to suggest? \p Keir Starmer: I did not mean to imply that in the statement; I was referring to the security strategy. The SDR is well under way, and as soon it has been completed I will put it before the House, but what is most important is for us to get it right rather than meeting a timeline. I am not seeking to delay it, but I am absolutely clear in my own mind that we need to ensure that we understand the challenges we face, and the capability.

I am particularly struck by the developments that have taken place during the three years of the conflict in Ukraine. The way in which the fighting started three years ago is very different from the way in which it is happening now. I was there a few weeks ago, and among the things I took away was the need for us to learn the lessons of Ukraine and bind them into what we are doing, rather than thinking that we are dealing with the world of even two or three years ago. That is why I want to ensure that this is the right review and the right strategy to put before the House. \p Laurence Turner: Let me start by drawing attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of the GMB defence manufacturing trade union. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to rebuilding the UK’s industrial capacity in defence.

All Governments face a balance between international collaboration and avoiding dependency on complex supply chains which can limit freedom of action, as some of our allies have found in their attempts to aid Ukraine. Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the objectives of the spending announced today must be to maintain and strengthen our sovereign freedom to aid our allies and defend our own shores? \p Keir Starmer: I do agree with that, and I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments about the supply chains, which are vital to the security effort. \p Monica Harding: The former United States Defence Secretary Jim Mattis once said:

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.”

Can the Prime Minister not see that funding this uplift through official development assistance is short-sighted and a strategic and moral mistake, because prevention is cheaper than wars, because this gives more leverage to Russia and China, and because we do it on the backs of the world’s poorest? In fact, it is something that I never thought I would see a Labour Government do, and a pitiful inheritance from 1997. Given that it is a policy choice and not a retrospective fiscal one, and given that it is in direct contravention of the law passed here in 2015, which rules out the link between levels of defence and development funding, will this Labour Government be repealing that law? \p Keir Starmer: The hon. Lady is right to say that prevention is better than war—that is why it is important that we prepare our defence to be able to secure and maintain the peace, and that is precisely why I made my statement today—but she is wrong about the law, and we are not going to repeal it. \p Jim Shannon: It is always a surprise not to be called last, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. It has encouraged everyone in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and we thank him for that. As for an increase in defence spending from 2.5% to 3%, let me gently remind the House that during the cold war it was 7%—so we have a bit to go yet to catch up, but there we are.

The new defence and security agreement with Norway is to be welcomed, but I am a great believer in ensuring, while we build new rooms in a house for new family members, that existing family members are comfortable at home with us. What discussions has the Prime Minister had with our closest ally, the United States of America, about aligning our defence strategies and solidifying the network of information-sharing? \p Keir Starmer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. We already work closely with Norway on defence and security, and we want to enhance and strengthen that, which the bilateral relationship will do. Of course we need to work with the United States, and I will be leaving for the US tomorrow. I have already had a number of conversations with President Trump, and our teams are speaking continually about these very important matters. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the ever-patient Charlotte Cane to ask the final question. \p Charlotte Cane: I welcome much of what was in the Prime Minister’s statement, particularly what he said about our continued support for the brave people of Ukraine, but I was shocked by what he has described as a difficult and painful decision to cut overseas aid. I suggest that it was nowhere near as difficult and painful as it will be for the very poorest families who find that our aid is no longer there for them. It is also hugely short-sighted, because helping communities to be stable and secure reduces the risk of war and unrest. Will the Prime Minister please assure us that he will look for less damaging ways of funding this much-needed increase in defence expenditure? \p Keir Starmer: It is a difficult decision—there is no getting away from that—but we cannot have a situation in which Members of this House stand up and support 2.5%, heading to 3%, and then cannot agree, or will not take the difficult decisions that are necessary in order to get there. I am not pretending that this is an easy decision, and I am certainly not pretending that it is a decision I wanted to make as Prime Minister. It is a decision that I am driven to make for the security and safety of our country and our continent. \p Nusrat Ghani: I am grateful to the Prime Minister. We got in all the Members who were bobbing throughout. \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the action we are taking to protect families in the face of the global spike in gas prices. In recent months, wholesale gas prices have risen to their highest level in two years. They are up nearly 15% compared with the previous price cap period. As a result, this morning Ofgem announced the energy price cap will rise by around £9 a month between April and June. We know this will be unwelcome news for families across the country that are already worried about their bills, but as Ofgem’s chief executive officer, Jonathan Brearley, said today,

“our reliance on international gas markets leads to volatile wholesale prices, and continues to drive up bills”.

This week marks three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and once again the British people are paying the price of our country being exposed to fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators. The truth is that every day we remain stuck on gas is another day families, businesses and, indeed, the public finances are at risk from these kinds of price spikes. That is why sprinting to home-grown, clean energy is the only way to end our exposure and our vulnerability as a country. In the meantime, we are determined to do all that we can to protect people, and today I want to set out the measures we are taking.

First, we want to provide greater help to the most vulnerable in time for next winter. The warm home discount currently gives around 3 million families a £150 rebate on their energy bills. The current system provides help to those on means-tested benefits, but excludes millions of people in homes not classified as hard to heat, as a result of criteria introduced by the last Government in 2022. These criteria are seen by many as arbitrary and unreliable, and they mean there are families in almost exactly the same circumstances with some receiving help and others not.

Today, we have announced that we will consult on proposals to abolish this restriction, meaning all households receiving means-tested benefits would be eligible for bills support next winter—from 3 million families in the current system to more than 6 million with our proposals—so that one in five families in Britain would get help with their bills through this scheme, including an additional 900,000 families with children and a total of 1.8 million households in fuel poverty. This Government are determined to do everything in our power to help people struggling to pay their energy bills and support the most vulnerable in our society.

Secondly, because of our exposure to fossil fuels, the cost of living crisis saw bills rocket to £2,500 and families plunged into unstable debt—debt that continues to accumulate today. In the system we have inherited, every bill payer pays for managing this debt burden. We are determined to act on behalf of those in debt and all the bill payers who are paying the costs of it. So we are working closely with Ofgem to accelerate proposals on a debt relief scheme that will support households that have built up unsustainable energy debt through the crisis and have no way of paying it. This will be an important first step to cut the costs of servicing bad  energy debt, and under these plans the target would be to reduce the debt allowance paid by all bill payers to pre-crisis levels.

Thirdly, we know that one of the best answers to high bills is upgrading homes so that they are cheaper to run, so we will shortly announce the details of around £0.5 billion pounds of funding under the warm homes local grant and £1.3 billion under the warm homes social housing fund to invest in home upgrades over the coming years and cut fuel poverty. In all, up to 300,000 households will benefit from upgrades in the next financial year through our warm homes plan—whether it is new insulation, double glazing, a heat pump or rooftop solar panels—which is more than double the number supported in the last financial year. We will also ensure that landlords invest in energy efficiency upgrades that will make homes warmer and bring down costs for tenants, lifting up to 1 million people out of fuel poverty, so that we are doing everything we can to ensure people have the security of a home they can afford to heat.

Fourthly, we are clear that we need a regulator that fights for consumers. That is why we have called on Ofgem to use its powers to the maximum to protect consumers by challenging unlawful back billing, taking action on inaccurate bills, driving the smart meter roll-out, giving every family the option of a zero standing charge tariff so they have more choice in how they pay for their energy, and ensuring that compensation is given for wrongful installation of prepayment meters. We are moving forward on our review of Ofgem to ensure it has the powers it needs to stand up for consumers and clamp down on poor behaviour by energy companies.

This set of measures shows a Government willing to use all the powers at our disposal to help protect consumers. However, important as these measures are, I must stress to the House that there is no proper solution to rising energy bills while this country remains exposed to the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets. That is why this Government are moving at speed to deliver clean power by lifting the onshore wind ban in England, consenting nearly 3 GW of solar, setting up Great British Energy, delivering a record-breaking renewables auction, making it easier to build the next generation of new nuclear power stations, and getting on with the job of implementing the reforms to the planning system, the grid and renewables auctions set out in our clean power action plan.

I have to report to the House, however, that despite the importance of this mission and the fact that we are running it, we continue to receive representations from Opposition parties not to speed up, but to slow down and to reject solar power, reject onshore wind, reject offshore wind and reject new transmission infrastructure—representations that, if accepted, would leave us more vulnerable and more insecure, with the British people paying the price. Let me tell the House that we will reject those representations. We know that every solar panel we put up, every wind turbine we build and every piece of transmission infrastructure we construct makes us more secure, and every time the Conservatives oppose those measures, they double down on their legacy of leaving this country exposed and the British people deeply vulnerable.

This Government will do whatever it takes to stand up for working people now and in the future—protecting families and businesses from the consequences of global events, driving forward our plans to bring down bills for  good and doing everything in our power to support those most in need. I commend this statement to the House. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the shadow Minister. \p Andrew Bowie: I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Today, the Government have announced an expansion of the warm home discount, with a change to the criteria that will see more low-income households receive a £150 payment to heat their homes, but for many this payment will be immediately eaten up by the increase in the energy price cap. We must be clear that the best protection for vulnerable households is to prioritise cheap energy. The announcement today is, frankly, a sticking-plaster approach to rising energy bills.

This Government fail to grasp the core issue: energy costs in this country are far too high for businesses, industry and, of course, bill payers. When the energy price cap rose in 2022, the now Secretary of State called it a “national emergency”. He called for an urgent freeze on energy bills and cited a lack of leadership. Now that he is in government, the only thing he is able to freeze is vulnerable pensioners by taking away their winter fuel allowance with no notice. Does the Minister think that shows leadership? I know that my constituents, and presumably hers too, will be concerned about their bills rising, concerned about inflation creeping back up—hitting 3% in January, despite the hard work done last year to bring it under control—and angry that Labour’s promise to cut bills by £300 is being broken.

The worst part of all of this is that this Government, led by ideological zealotry from the Secretary of State, are doubling down. Their obsession with going further and faster than any country in the world to meet their own self-imposed 2030 target is going to increase people’s bills even further. The renewables industry has warned that their rush to build record renewables in the next five years will push up prices and “consumers will lose out”. The Government’s rush to build twice as much grid in the next five years as was built in the last decade will increase the network costs on people’s bills. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that the environmental levies will increase to £14 billion in 2030, largely driven by the hidden cost of renewables, all of which will end up on people’s energy bills.

The Labour party was not honest about its promise during the election to cut bills by £300, it was not honest about its plan to take the winter fuel payment away from millions of pensioners living in poverty, and now it is not being honest with the British people about what its plans will do to our energy bills. If we have learned anything over the past few years, it is that the cost of energy is absolutely critical to any modern economy. We cannot go on following ideology over evidence and putting political targets ahead of what will cut the cost of energy in this country. However, this Government are in denial, which is why they scrapped the full system cost analysis commissioned when the Conservatives were in office.

Will the Minister say when proposals for a debt relief scheme will be published? Will she confirm by how much she expects levies to increase over the next five  years? Will she commission a full system cost analysis of what the 2030 target will do to people’s energy bills? Will she confirm by how much bills will rise before we see the £300 off, which we were all promised? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: The hon. Gentleman is right that energy prices are too high—on that, we agree. We also agree that that is worrying for families and businesses across the country. However, I would point out that 80% of this rise has been driven by wholesale prices. I would also gently remind him that the reason we are in this position—the reason we are so exposed to global fossil fuel prices over which we have no control—is because the Conservatives spent 14 years in government squandering the opportunity to accelerate the transition to clean power and reduce our dependence on global fossil fuel prices, leaving families across the country exposed.

The status quo is not tenable. We are at a point where energy prices are at an historic high, and we got here under his Government. That is a status quo that we are not willing to contend with. That is the reason—not because of ideology, but because we see the obvious: as long as we are dependent on global fossil fuel prices, we will be on this rollercoaster. That is what is driving the push to clean power. While the Conservatives have no alternatives, we have a clear alternative: we run to clean power; and while we do that, we support the most vulnerable households in the short term.

To answer the shadow Minister’s question, Ofgem is in the process of consulting on the debt support scheme as we speak, and we will support it to put that in place. We know that the debt burden has increased by £3.8 billion, and more than 1.8 million households in need of help will be supported by that scheme. We are absolutely committed to cutting bills—everything we are doing as a Government is driven by that desire and clear commitment. We will do that both through short-term measures and, critically, by running at clean power by 2030.

We have a plan to deal with energy bills. The Opposition have a plan to slow down and do nothing, and it will be the British public who pay the price. \p Jon Trickett: It is clear that the Conservative party left this country dependent on global fossil fuel supplies, which both burn the planet and are damaging in terms of price controls. However, the Tories left something else as well: a rigged energy market, which gave £480 billion to the energy industry yet left 8 million households—probably 17 million people—in fuel poverty, spending more than 10% of their income on energy.

It is therefore welcome that the Minister has today announced an additional £150 for the warm home discount, but that, as I understand it, is a one-off payment for next winter. A £150 one-off payment will not resolve the underlying problem—today, the regulator has increased the cap by £111 or £108, depending on how it is calculated, per year on an ongoing basis. I welcome the Government’s announcement and recognise the Minister’s commitment to changing the way that things work. However, will my hon. Friend confirm to the House that the Government intend to end this  rigged market, which works in favour of the profiteers, and tackle the scourge of fuel poverty, while at the same time securing a just transition to clean energy? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have an energy market that does not work sufficiently in the interest of consumers, and we are committed to turning that around. That is why we are reforming the electricity market, why we are trying to drive forward a shift from fossil fuels to clean power, and why we are putting in place the review of Ofgem, to ensure that customers and consumers are at the very heart of everything we do in the energy market. This is an important step to supporting households in the short term. We took action this winter, with up to £1 billion of support through Government and industry to help the most vulnerable customers, and the measures announced today will ensure that we will provide support next winter. However, it is not the end of our ambition; it is the start of our ambition to reform the energy market. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. \p Vikki Slade: I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. It is deeply troubling that we remain so reliant on the foreign gas markets and that, as a result, vulnerable people in this country will see an increase in their bills.

I completely welcome the proposals to expand the warm home discount. No one should have to choose between heating and eating—we all know that. However, the reality is that we have to get beyond that issue and reduce consumption, instead of just handing public money to our energy giants. The Lib Dems have been calling for a 10-year emergency home insulation plan for a long time, and it was disappointing that the amendment tabled to the Great British Energy Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) was not taken up, so I would be grateful if that could be looked at again in any other scope.

What timeline can we expect for the upgrade of building standards for new homes and the decent homes standard for existing properties, so that people are not having to consume as much electricity and gas? Until all homes are properly insulated, what progress has been made on requiring all energy companies to sign up to a single social tariff, paying particular attention to the pensioners left cold after the removal of the winter fuel allowance?

I was contacted by Michael from H2-ecO, a company that does lots of retrofitting, who told me about the home upgrade grant, affectionately known as HUG, which is ending in March, when it is due to be replaced immediately, with continuity, by the warm homes local grant. The company was told on Friday that it will not be continued, and that there will be a pause—five weeks before the scheme ends. People have been told that they would be able to pre-register, but now they are told that there will be a pause. They asked me to tell you that they are concerned that they will lose their contractors [Interruption.] Sorry—not you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Minister. I apologise. \p Nusrat Ghani: Order. You have two minutes for your contribution, and you are just over that. If you could come to a conclusion, that would be great. \p Vikki Slade: I absolutely will, Madam Deputy Speaker. They asked me to ask you—sorry, they asked me to ask the Minister what guarantee can be offered that the scheme will open immediately, and not be slowed by reviews, and when will you set out your long-term plans before 2026? \p Nusrat Ghani: When will you set those out, Minister, since I will not be responding at the Dispatch Box? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: The hon. Lady is right that insulating and upgrading people’s homes is the route by which we will reduce bills and deliver homes that are warmer and cheaper to run. That is why we are absolutely committed to the warm homes plan. Rather than there being a pause, we are running at this.

Next financial year, 300,000 homes will be upgraded, which is double the number in the previous financial year, and that is just the start for our warm homes plan. We are working with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to bring forward the future homes and buildings standards. Critically, we have spoken to industry, installers and local government, and we are acutely aware that there should and cannot be a hiatus. We are moving forward with the local grant and the warm homes social housing scheme to ensure that there is not one. I ask the hon. Lady to write with the specifics of that scheme, because we are trying to design it to stop that.

Critically, on the social tariff, we are clear that clean power is the route by which we will bear down on energy costs in the long term, but that we will need to support the most vulnerable customers as we get there. There are different ways to design a social tariff, and we are looking at options for how to support the most vulnerable at the moment, and the warm home discount is a key part of delivering that. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call Luke Murphy, a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. \p Luke Murphy: Many of my constituents, like others across the country, will be concerned about the increase in their energy bills announced today. I therefore welcome the Government’s extension of the warm home discount, as well as the measures to tackle unsustainable debt and push the regulator to do more to support consumers.

I must say that the shadow Minister talks as if his Government left a legacy of low energy prices, when it was his Government who left an appalling legacy of high energy prices. I have stood in both this Chamber and Westminster Hall and heard shadow Ministers attack renewables and electric vehicles—do they not realise that they are attacking the very means of bringing down the cost of energy? Does the Minister agree that our clean energy mission and renewables is the fastest way to ensure we end our dependence on volatile fossil fuels, which also leaves us at the mercy of Vladimir Putin? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I thank my hon. Friend—that was well said.

The Conservative party left us with the highest energy prices that we have seen in a generation. That is a legacy that, quite frankly, should see them hang their heads in shame. Rather than criticising us for trying to unpick and deal with their legacies, I would strongly caution them to support our action. [Interruption.] It is their legacy!

My hon. Friend is right: the way that we get out of this bind, left by and inherited from the Conservative party, is through clean power, delivering renewables that we know are cheaper and clean power by 2030. My hon. Friend is right; the Conservative party continues to be misguided. Thankfully, we are in the driving seat. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, Bradley Thomas. \p Bradley Thomas: Rising energy costs affect not just households but industry. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has said that deindustrialising Britain is a false economy because it “shifts production and emissions elsewhere”. Can the Minister tell the House what is more important: chasing an arbitrary target or protecting industry and jobs? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: Businesses are under pressure from high energy prices. We know that. Again, I remind Conservative party Members that given their legacy, they should perhaps be a bit more humble about that. We are working with industry and it recognises that the way to drive down energy bills is through clean power. The Confederation of British Industry came out this week saying that our energy revolution is good for business. It is the route to lower energy costs for business and to creating jobs across the country. We have a plan, not just for energy bills but for jobs and the economy, which is rooted in clean energy, and that is much better than the legacy that we have inherited. \p Nesil Caliskan: Thousands of my constituents are still dealing with the cost of living crisis, finding themselves in debt because energy prices hit record levels under the previous Government. Energy prices continuing to go up makes those constituents’ lives more difficult, so I welcome the Minister’s statement. Will she, however, provide further reassurance about the immediate action the Government can take to regulate energy companies who are taking their customers for a ride, such as the thousands of my constituents who still do not have meters in their homes and who are being billed unlawfully for backdated energy and, in some cases, energy that they have not used? Will the Minister give the House further reassurance that there needs to be immediate action, as well as a long-term plan from the Government to see the transition to clean energy? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the cost of living crisis that blights constituencies across the country, with many people facing energy debt totalling £3.8 billion. She is also right, however, to point out that there are things that must be done to ensure that customers are served by the energy market. That is why we are ensuring that the regulator has the power—we are also instructing it to use the ones it has—to ensure that things such as back  billing, which we know is an issue, do not happen. The rules are very clear and we need them to be enforced to ensure that when customers do not receive the best customer service from their suppliers, there are consequences. Our review of Ofgem is to ensure that it has the powers it needs to be that champion for consumers. In the end, the energy market must work in the interest of people. We agree that that is not happening at the moment and it must happen after we reform it. \p Wera Hobhouse: In the UK, electricity prices are linked to the global fossil fuel market, which is at the bottom of UK households’ paying the highest energy costs in Europe. To fix that, the use of a single levy-controlled system has been suggested, with two simple rates—one for electricity and one for gas—set by Ministers. That would allow the Government to manage the cost for households and lower prices, especially for clean energy. Will the Minister look into that suggestion? I am happy to meet her to go through those details further. \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: Our reform of the energy market arrangements looks at all the aspects of our electricity market that are not working. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) is looking at that question and the Department is willing to work across the House to ensure we get to the right arrangements. As long as gas continues to drive the cost of energy, that will create a problem and have an impact on consumers. We are alive to that question and will report on that in due course. \p Amanda Martin: I thank the Minister for her statement. I hear from many constituents who suffer with energy debt as a result of the previous Government’s failure to protect billpayers during the energy crisis. Many of them are petrified, unable to move or change providers. I welcome the proposed acceleration of a debt relief scheme, but can the Minister provide more details on how that will help families in my constituency of Portsmouth North? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: We know that energy debt is a big problem. I have spoken to people across the country who are suffering with accumulated debt that they have no way of paying, with many having to forfeit energy as a consequence. Ofgem is consulting on a range of options, but at the heart of that is the principle that there needs to be a debt relief scheme. Whether we write off some of the energy debt that cannot be paid, or put in place payment plans, we want to ensure that those 1.8 million households have the opportunity to drive that debt in a way that means their energy will be sustainable. That is absolutely critical. It deals with the legacy of the energy crisis and the fact that many households have had to accumulate debt because they just could not pay £2,500. It is an important step and one that we are keen to support the regulator to deliver. \p Julian Lewis: I entirely agree with the Government that, as the Minister said in her statement, we should not be “paying the price of our country being exposed to fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.” Given that we cannot  move completely to clean energy tomorrow, why do the Government insist on closing down and, indeed, concreting over our potential fossil fuel gas reserves until such time as we can move completely to clean energy? Why should we import it from other states while piously saying that we will not extract it from beneath our own country? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: There will be a role for gas in our energy mix, but we are very clear that the route and the quickest way to getting ourselves off that dependence is through clean power. We have made a decision that we will put our energy into driving clean power by 2030. In the end, that is the quickest and best route to delivering for consumers and businesses and ensuring that we can deliver energy security, which we all, across the House, agree will deliver financial security for families across the country. \p Perran Moon: I thoroughly welcome the statement, particularly on the reform of Ofgem and back billing. It is a key plank in the just transition as we move away from a rigged energy market that is totally reliant on imports of gas from dictators such as Putin. It is not, however, just about the transition to renewables. Does the Minister agree that in that transition we will also create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs right across the UK, including in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, covering onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal, tidal and solar? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the heart of this is the opportunity to create jobs and boost local economies across the country. That is good not just for our energy independence and family finances, but for every single part of our economy. That is why, rather than slowing down, we are committed to accelerating to deliver clean power by 2030. \p John Glen: Families and businesses obviously operate in an environment with lots of different costs. When they see increases in their tax bills, the burdens of potential new regulation and additional energy costs, they are bound to challenge themselves on what they can afford to invest. The Minister is clear on the Government’s strategic direction, but does she not accept that in the short and medium term the burdens during the journey to change are enormous for business and will have a massive effect on the level of investment in this country? Does that not concern her? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I challenge the right hon. Member on this matter. Businesses are completely behind us because they can see that clean power is the route by which we reduce energy costs and, critically, create jobs and invest in our industry. That is good not just for people’s pockets, and for dealing with the energy problem, which we know we have to deal with, and the affordability problem, but, ultimately, for the economy. It is good for business. This is a win-win situation. It is a shame that the Conservative party cannot see it, because it is obvious to us, obvious to industry, and obvious to businesses across the country. That is why we will continue to power forward with our plans. \p Deirdre Costigan: The previous Conservative Government abjectly failed to insulate our leaky homes and get our home heating systems ready to take advantage of the cheaper, clean energy that Labour  is now creating. In addition to the very welcome discount that the Minister has announced today, does she agree that Labour’s plan to upgrade hundreds of thousands of homes with heat pumps and better insulation next year is a vital part of this Government’s commitment to lowering household bills? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is completely right: the previous Government failed to insulate and upgrade enough homes to protect people from energy price hikes. Conservative Members are hanging their heads in shame and rightly so. She is also right that we are committed to upgrading hundreds of thousands of homes. That is critical. The way that we ensure that households are insulated from price rises and the way that we drive down prices is to upgrade those homes. That is a central part of our plan. We are already running at it with 300,000 homes in the coming year, but we will build on that, because we want to ensure that homes across the country benefit. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. \p Claire Young: Chopping and changing home upgrade schemes, as we saw under the previous Conservative Government, causes uncertainty and confusion, which is damaging for both consumers and installers alike. Will this Government avoid that mistake by setting out long-term plans for energy efficiency schemes that go beyond 2026? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: One hundred per cent. We need a long-term plan, so that every part of the system can respond to that. Our warm homes plan will try to set a long-term trajectory, so that we can marshal every part of the system necessary to deliver hundreds of thousands of upgrades, year in, year out. \p Jeevun Sandher: May I welcome the Minister’s announcement around the expansion of the warm home discount scheme? About 160,000 homes in my region will get £150 more help with their energy bills, but, clearly, the root cause of higher prices is higher natural gas prices, which have doubled since the election in July 2024. We know that natural gas is 50% to 75% more expensive than wind and solar, because the sun and the wind are free, and natural gas is not. Can the Minister assure me that we will get into clean energy by 2030, so that we can get our energy bills down for good? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I thank my hon. Friend for making the point so well. He is absolutely right that this is the route by which we can deliver cheaper energy. I can assure him that we are committed to driving this for the reasons that he said. This is the way that we break the stranglehold that we are in. This is the way that we get off this rollercoaster of price rises and price falls that is impacting households across the country. The commitment is there, and we are running with that commitment. \p Dave Doogan: Yet again, an Energy Minister comes to the House to tell us that they are moving at pace. The only thing moving at pace is the last shred of credibility from that Department as it talks about protecting consumers from higher energy prices. Let us not forget that this is the Labour party that stripped 900,000 Scottish pensioners  of their winter fuel payment, and that told us that fuel prices would go down £300, when they are now £600 higher than the level it promised they would be ahead of the election. Can the Minister explain three things to me? Did the Labour party profoundly misunderstand how energy in the United Kingdom works, or was it misleading the electorate? Why is it that the Minister is making such a big deal about Ofgem doing its actual job of getting after back billing? Should it not be doing that anyway? Why is that an announcement? Thirdly, when will consumers in GB finally see some response from this Government about higher energy bills? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I remind the hon. Member that the Scottish Government have jurisdiction in this area. We are working in collaboration with them to deliver this, but the Scottish Government do have responsibility in this area and he knows it. We are committed to bearing down on energy bills—of course we are. It is the central driving mission of everything that we are doing as a Government. It has been eight months. I hope that everyone can see from what we have done—whether it is removing the ban on onshore wind, whether it is a record-breaking auction, or whether it is the plans that we have to support the most vulnerable households—that we are running at this. We take our commitment seriously, and we are doing everything in our power to drive it. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reminds his colleagues in Scotland that they should be using the power that they have, including with the warm home discount, to protect their consumers. \p Christopher Vince: I welcome the Minister’s statement. This extra support will make a huge difference to residents in my constituency of Harlow. One of the issues with living in a post-war new town is that all the houses were built at roughly the same time, so the issues of insulation all appear at roughly the same time. At this morning’s crisis summit, which I and the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) attended, there was a strong feeling that cross-departmental communication is key to ensuring that funding gets to the people who need it the most. Does the Minister agree? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is why we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and across Government, to target this support at households, so that we are helping people who we know are struggling. \p Richard Holden: It was interesting to hear the Minister say how humble we on the Conservative Benches should be. Clearly, the Secretary of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero is so humble that he has not even bothered to turn up for this supposedly important statement. It is no more than a smokescreen, as we are seeing energy bills go up yet again. When will my constituents see the £300 energy cut that was promised by the Government? The Minister talked about international markets. Why on earth are this Government not looking again at drilling in the North sea? It is vital that we do so today; then, rather than just helping out a little bit with means-tested benefits, they could perhaps afford to do more for my constituents who are on £12,000 or £13,000 a year, and for pensioners who are losing their winter fuel payments this very year. Why will they not take a look at that? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: Given the legacy of the right hon. Gentleman’s party, a bit more humility is warranted. We are committed to driving down energy bills. Everything that the Department is doing hinges on the central task of getting clean power. Everyone, including the regulator and industry, recognises that prices are going up because of our reliance on global fossil fuels. We are committed to dealing with that, and to providing support to the most vulnerable. We are taking action. The Conservatives were in power for 14 years and did absolutely nothing. Absolute shame on them. \p John Slinger: I welcome the Minister’s statement. Will my hon. Friend join me in praising the work of Citizens Advice teams, such as those that I have seen in my constituency of Rugby, who provide really useful support? They help people to navigate the numerous support schemes that the Government have put in place. They also deal with debt management and income maximisation. They are helping our constituents at a difficult time with the cost of living crisis that we inherited. Does she agree that this is valuable work that deserves our continuing support? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is completely right. Citizens Advice teams, and the network of third-party organisations and charities that they work with, are providing some of the most vital support to our constituents at a really difficult time. Citizens Advice is a key partner. We work with it and engage with it. I am going across the country meeting its teams, because we absolutely need their help to target support at the most vulnerable. \p Lee Anderson: I thank the Minister for her statement, but not for the madness contained within it. Recently, we have discovered a new gas field in Lincolnshire. We could frack the gas, yet we are still importing fracked gas from the United States, which is creating all sorts of mayhem in the atmosphere. Does the Minister agree that it would be better for the environment if we fracked our own gas, rather than importing it from America? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I am disappointed that the hon. Member did not listen to my statement. If he had listened to it properly, he would not have come up with that statement. Once again, there will be a mix, but we are clear that the quickest route to driving down energy bills is through clean power by 2030. That is sprinting at it. There is no other route to delivering energy security and financial security for our country. The industry is behind us on this, and we are working to deliver it. \p Jayne Kirkham: I welcome the support in this statement, and the fact that 300,000 houses will be insulated in the next year. Does the Minister agree that the only long-term solution that will lead to energy security is our clean power plan? It will be good for areas like mine. The Confederation of British Industry pointed out yesterday that the green economy is growing three times quicker than the wider economy in this country. People want us to speed up, not slow down. \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is 100% right. This is the route by which we will deliver for people’s pockets and, critically, deliver the jobs that we need  across the country and boost our economy. We are clear-sighted about what needs to be done. It is a shame that the Conservative party is so blinkered. \p Lewis Cocking: We need to produce more energy at home from renewables and oil and gas, as we need a diverse energy mix in the UK. That will help us to deal with the volatile global energy markets. When will the Government change course and support the UK’s oil and gas industry, including the cluster based in north-east Scotland, and issue new oil and gas licences to help bring down bills for residents across the country and in my constituency? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I direct the hon. Member to the clean power plan, and the analysis done on the way to deliver energy security. We are clear that this is the quickest and best route by which to do that. In the end, one thing guides what we do: the need to get lower bills for the long term. We believe that this is the way to do it. The rest of the system agrees with us, from the regulator through to NESO. Our job is to crack on and deliver that. \p Tom Collins: I welcome the Minister’s statement, which has practical steps to support people with their bills, and a long-term plan, delivered at speed, to transition to a resilient, sustainable, clean energy system that takes advantage of the incredible advances in renewables in recent years. Offshore wind is providing really low-cost power, underpinned by UK-led innovation in technologies such as hydrogen. The Minister has laid out ambitious plans for supporting households in upgrading their homes, and has made excellent early progress on those upgrades. Will she continue working in partnership with UK innovators and manufacturers to make it not just possible but easy for homeowners to keep their homes warm with dependable, clean and affordable energy? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: My hon. Friend is completely right. We are committed to working with industry on upgrading our homes. We believe that that is the way to drive down bills, but we need to make this as easy as possible for consumers across the country. We are working with industry and across the piece to deliver at pace. \p Luke Taylor: I welcome many of the measures in the statement, although I echo the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) that we consider decoupling electricity and gas prices; that would make such a difference. In 2023, Sutton council was blocked by the opposition Conservative group from partaking of an EU grant to help upgrade some of our council houses to energy performance certificate rating C. I welcome the warm homes social housing fund, but I encourage the Minister and the rest of the Government to increase the amounts available in these funds, so that we reward as often as possible councils that are ambitious to provide better, warmer homes for their residents. \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are committed to working with local and regional government. We are increasing the support provided and are ensuring that it is long-term support, because we agree that the route to insulating  lots of homes is through partnerships with local and regional governments, to deliver homes that are warmer and cheaper to run. \p Carla Lockhart: Northern Ireland is the only region of this United Kingdom where the warm home discount scheme is not available. Since 2011, the UK Government have failed to grasp this issue. The reason given is that fuel poverty is a devolved issue, but the same can be said of Scotland and Wales. When the price increase in Northern Ireland is announced next week, the assistance will not be available. Will the Minister meet me to discuss this matter? Furthermore, will she open conversations with the Northern Ireland Executive about righting this wrong? \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are reaching out to and working with the Northern Ireland Executive. I would be happy to meet on this issue. \p Ann Davies: Extending the warm home discount to all households that receive means-tested benefits could make a difference to many, especially those who have not received their winter fuel payment this winter. However, £150 off will not go far enough to help the 56% of adults in Wales likely to ration their energy over the next three months, according to National Energy Action Cymru. With the energy price cap rising again in April, will the Minister admit that we need long-term solutions that ensure energy affordability, such as the social energy tariff, which I have asked for since I came to this House last July, in order to support— \p Nusrat Ghani: Order. \p Miatta Fahnbulleh: I agree that we need long-term solutions. That is why we have talked constantly about the clean power mission, and why we are clear that while we make the transition to clean power, we will support the most vulnerable households. As an important first step, we are extending support next winter to over 6 million people who we know are struggling. We will continue to build on that in the weeks and months ahead. \p Lee Anderson: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the statement on defence and security, the leader of the Scottish National party, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), described Reform UK MPs as Putin’s puppets and said that they were missing from the Chamber during the statement. That is not true. I was present for the Prime Minister’s statement, left for a comfort break and returned for the rest of the session. In fact, I have been in this Chamber for nearly four hours today. Funnily enough, when I returned to the Chamber, the leader of the SNP and his MPs were not actually present. The leader of the SNP has misled the House and should apologise, if you can find him. \p Nusrat Ghani: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order, although it was slightly longer than what he provided notice of. I have no doubt that he let the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) know that he would be speaking about him. The hon. Member should know that it is not appropriate to accuse other Members of misleading the House. As ever, it is vital that Members in all parts of the House maintain good temper and moderation in debate. \p Gregory Campbell: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Many people will have become aware of the recent controversy regarding the BBC’s decision to broadcast on its iPlayer service the documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone”. It only withdraw it after public outcry. It featured the son of a Hamas deputy Minister, and there has been the further revelation in the past 24 hours that the cameraman on the film put up a celebratory tweet after the 7 October massacre. The Culture Secretary has already indicated publicly that she wants to speak to the director general of the BBC about this outrageous lack of due diligence, but has she indicated to the Speaker’s Office that she intends to make a statement to the House, to allow right hon. and hon. Members to seek further clarification and get answers for the wider public? \p Nusrat Ghani: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. I have not received any indication that a Minister intends to make a statement to the House on this matter, but Department for Culture, Media and Sport questions will be on Thursday, and I am sure that the Table Office can advise him on how to pursue this matter further. \p UNKNOWN: Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Yvette Cooper, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Secretary Steve Reed, the Solicitor General and Dame Diana Johnson, presented a Bill to make provision about anti-social behaviour, offensive weapons, offences against people (including sexual offences), property offences, the criminal exploitation of persons,  sex offenders, stalking and public order; to make provision about powers of the police, the Border Force and other similar persons; to make provision about confiscation; to make provision about the police; to make provision about terrorism and national security, and about international agreements relating to crime; to make provision about the criminal liability of bodies; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 187) with explanatory notes (Bill 187-EN). \p UNKNOWN: Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23) \p Jesse Norman: I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish and implement a plan for cleaning and improving the water quality of the River Wye; and for connected purposes.

As shadow Leader of the House, I am rarely allowed to speak on behalf of my constituents from the Back Benches, so this ten-minute rule motion is a priceless opportunity for me to highlight a vital issue of both local and national significance—the plight of the River Wye. The Wye is one of the most beautiful and ecologically significant rivers in the UK. Rising from the slopes of Plynlimon in mid-Wales, it winds its way via Hay-on-Wye and Hereford on to Ross-on-Wye before heading down to Symonds Yat, Monmouth, Tintern and the Severn estuary.

The Wye valley, too, is renowned for its beauty. It is a special area of conservation with two sites of special scientific interest. The river is thus a vital part not only of the local economy in Herefordshire but of our landscape, our culture and our heritage as a nation. Admired since Roman times, the river is one of the birthplaces of British tourism, the origin of the movement known as the picturesque and the inspiration for some of the finest poetry in the English language, yet in recent years it has faced huge environmental pressures, particularly from high phosphate levels, which have harmed water quality and aquatic life.

The rapid growth of certain farming sectors, including poultry, has brought economic benefits but also placed additional strain on the river. As well as agricultural run-off, sewage and waste water discharges and changes in land management have contributed to the problem. Those pressures have been compounded by rises in water temperature and changes to seasonal water flow. Many of those specific problems and their interactions are still not fully understood, so there is a real need for proper research.

Building on the work of Councillor Elissa Swinglehurst and the Wye and Usk Foundation among many others, I first highlighted this issue in September 2020. From the start I pressed the agencies—the Environment Agency, Natural England and Natural Resources Wales—for a collective response and called on them to produce a cross-border, all-catchment long-term action plan.

In June 2021, working with other catchment MPs at the time, I invited the national agencies and the local councils on both sides of the border to a special meeting devoted to the issue. In October 2021, I co-ordinated a letter from Wye catchment MPs to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury calling for a specific spending package devoted to the Wye in the 2021 three-year spending review. The result, notwithstanding lockdowns and other pandemic delays, was the Hereford Shell Store meeting of July 2022 and the setting up of the Wye phosphates working group, whose terms of reference were then adopted—very much with my support—by a phosphates commission established by the four local authorities. All those things helped to bring people and groups together.

In the course of that work, I am pleased to say we also had one major win of substance. I had called for the proceeds of fines on water companies to be ringfenced and devoted to a new national rivers recovery fund. In November 2022, the Government accepted that ringfencing.

In relation to the Wye, it is important to be aware that much good work has been done on the ground. The cross-border nutrient management board has carefully assessed and assembled a range of potentially useful measures. Thanks to detailed assessment work with Welsh Water, it now looks as though local sewage and waste water discharges will be brought within national standards—though only by the early 2030s, which is still far too slow. The community response on both sides of the border has been magnificent, with hundreds of volunteer citizen scientists actively taking weekly water readings under the aegis of the Friends of the Wye and other organisations.

At the national level, I am sorry to say that progress in addressing these issues has been painfully slow. For years, the creation of a high-level catchment-wide plan, essential to managing this cross-border issue, was impeded by political differences between the Welsh and UK Governments. Meanwhile, the regulatory agencies struggled to enforce existing environmental protections effectively. Finally, after three ministerial visits, including one by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to Hereford in June 2023, we managed to secure publication of the River Wye action plan last year. That at least covered the English part of the river, and £35 million was reallocated from within existing DEFRA budgets to fund mitigations and the development of an integrated long-term recovery strategy.

The then Government also announced that they had appointed a new river champion, whose job it was to lead the detailed planning work in collaboration with key stakeholders on both sides of the border. The plan for the Wye was by no means perfect, but for the first time it provided a framework, badly needed money to support projects and research, and a named person to help drive things forward on the ground. It was therefore deeply disappointing when the plan was dropped by the new Government after the general election, alongside the idea of the river champion.

It is still more disappointing that the Treasury is also now rowing back on the previous Government’s commitment to ringfence money from fines on water companies and use them for a river restoration fund. That is a massive step backwards. Water companies  have paid many tens of millions of pounds in fines since 2022 alone. That money should go back into saving our rivers.

What is to be done? Protecting and restoring the Wye requires a long-term, collaborative approach, as I have highlighted. The UK and Welsh Governments, the agencies, farmers, businesses, local authorities, environmental groups and local people all have a role to play in developing a strategy that balances economic sustainability with environmental responsibility. While I am very glad that my colleague the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) is sponsoring the Bill, it is a great pity that other Wye catchment MPs have chosen not to. Indeed, I do not notice a single Wye catchment MP in the Chamber; a great sadness.

The Bill is clear and simple in its intent. It would for the first time require the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in law to publish and implement a plan for cleaning and improving the water quality of the River Wye. That is a measure that every MP of every constituency inside or outside the Wye catchment should be enthusiastic to support. Solutions must include better land management, improved water treatment, effective incentives for sustainable farming and stronger oversight and enforcement.

The Wye catchment 2025 management plan is designed to cover not just water quality but biodiversity loss and flood and drought vulnerability. The nutrient management board provides an important framework of public accountability in relation to measures affecting nutrients and water quality. In other words, many of the key clean-up measures and mitigations are well understood. What we need now is action. We need an end to delay. We need political leadership from Ministers on both sides of the border, a shared determination to address this vital national issue with the seriousness it deserves, and the funding—the £35 million cut from the plan for the Wye—to make it happen.

The River Wye is a true national treasure. It requires not just short-term measures but a sustained, collective effort led by the UK and Welsh Governments to ensure that this magnificent river is fully restored to health as swiftly as that can be achieved.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Jesse Norman and Ellie Chowns present the Bill.

Jesse Norman accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 July, and to be printed (Bill 186). \p UNKNOWN: Second Reading \p Nusrat Ghani: The reasoned amendment in the name of Ian Sollom has been selected. \p Bridget Phillipson: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

We are a country of incredible talent and enterprise; a country of industry and invention. Our universities lead the world. Our colleges deliver excellence to hundreds of thousands up and down the country. British companies founded on great ideas export their products across the globe. Our strengths range from research to manufacturing and from professional services to creative industries, yet there remains a wide and growing gap between where we are now and what I know our great country is capable of, because, despite our many strengths, there are skills missing from our workforce.

There are skills missed by people who want to get on in life, get better training to land that great job and earn a decent living; skills missed by our employers, with businesses, hospitals, labs and factories held back; skills missed by so many of our communities, with towns and cities left behind as industry has moved on; and skills missed by our country. Those skills are vital to the security and growth that this Labour Government are so determined to deliver.

Our latest data shows us that half a million vacancies sit empty simply because employers struggle to find the right staff with the right skills: the most since we started collecting the data in 2011. That is half a million jobs not filled, half a million careers not boosted and half a million opportunities not taken—a tragic waste that this country simply cannot afford. But I am sorry to say that this is not surprising. We have fallen behind our neighbours on higher technical qualifications—the ones that sit just below degree level, but which can lead to well-paid, fulfilling careers for software developers, civil engineering technicians or construction site supervisors.

Over 90% of employers value basic digital skills in their job candidates, but more than 7 million adults lack them. Our skills gaps deal our people and our country a double blow. They hold back the economic growth we need to invest in our public services and drive national prosperity, and they hold back the ambitions of working people who deserve the chance not just to get by but to get on. They deny them the opportunity, the power and the freedom to choose the life they want to live. \p Ashley Fox: Would the Secretary of State agree that one of the difficulties is that employers cannot spend the money from the apprenticeship levy easily, and that too much of that money is retained by the Treasury? Will she undertake to speak to the Chancellor to see whether she could make it easier for employers to spend that money on training? \p Bridget Phillipson: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Chancellor is as committed as I am to ensuring that we have the right skills within the economy, because without them we will not be able to deliver the economic  growth that is the No. 1 mission of this Labour Government. But we are committed to reforming the failing apprenticeship levy, reforming the system and converting it into a growth and skills levy with more flexibility for employers. As a first step, this will include shorter-duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors, making sure that we are working more effectively with employers in order for our economy to grow. \p John Hayes: I welcome the commitment to skills that the Secretary of State is articulating, but will she recognise that too often the advice given to young people, particularly from schools, is to pursue an academic career—I use the word “academic” in the loosest possible sense—rather than to engage in practical learning? That means that while the shortages she describes are profound, there are also many people who are graduates in non-graduate jobs owing a lot of money and with pretty useless degrees. \p Bridget Phillipson: I was almost on the point of saying that I agreed with much of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say, but unfortunately he went and ruined it at the end with that comment about the value of university education and of having the chance to gain a degree. Where I do share common cause with him is that I want to make sure that all young people have a range of pathways available to them, including fantastic technical training routes, including through apprenticeships, but I also want to make sure that young people with talent and ability are able to take up a university course if that is the right path and the right choice for them.

As we were recently celebrating National Apprenticeship Week, I took the opportunity to see across the country some of the fantastic routes that are available in areas such as construction and nuclear, with really wonderful job opportunities and careers where young people are able to make fantastic progress. \p Christopher Vince: I had the opportunity to visit Harlow College during National Apprenticeship Week, and I really agree with the points that my right hon. Friend is making. Does she agree that if we are to achieve the new homes targets that we really want to achieve and get people off the streets and into those homes, we need to train those apprentices now and that Skills England can be part of that future? \p Bridget Phillipson: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I know how much he champions, in his constituency and in the House, opportunities for young people to have the chance to take on new skills, including through apprenticeship routes. Where it comes to construction, he is right to say that there are fantastic opportunities out there. It was heartening, during some of my visits during National Apprenticeship Week, to see the fantastic contribution that women play in construction, breaking down some of the stereotypes that exist about the right opportunities, and to meet some amazing engineering apprentices and bricklaying apprentices. Those women are really trailblazing in an industry that is often very male-dominated. \p Toby Perkins: On the subject of construction, does my right hon. Friend agree that a huge amount of the construction industry is made up of small employers and that one of the biggest failings of  the apprenticeship levy approach has been that small and medium-sized enterprises have been shut out? We have had a 50% reduction in the number of SMEs offering apprenticeships since the introduction of the levy. How will she increase the number of SMEs that are able to offer apprenticeships? If the major employers are the ones that have all the budget, how do we ensure that we increase the number of SME apprenticeships? \p Bridget Phillipson: My hon. Friend has a long-standing interest in this area and has consistently raised not only the challenges faced by small businesses but the opportunities to create more apprenticeship starts and more training routes for people across our country. One of the changes that we set out during National Apprenticeship Week was to the maths and English requirements for adult apprentices, which will make a big difference to employers large and small and was welcomed by business, but he is right to say that much more is needed to help smaller employers and small contractors to take on apprentices. That is the work that Skills England will drive forward and that is why this Bill is such a crucial development.

The skills gaps that we face in our country deny people the opportunity, the power and the freedom to choose the life that they want to live. But it is not just today that we count the cost; those gaps limit our power to shape the careers, the economy and the society of tomorrow as well. Only with the right skills can people take control of their future, and only with the right skills system can we drive the growth that this country needs. It is time this country took skills seriously again: no longer an afterthought, but now at the centre of change; no longer a nice to have, but now a driving force for opportunity; no longer neglected, but now a national strength.

There is much to celebrate. Plenty of colleges go above and beyond, plenty of employers are ready to contribute and plenty of people are eager to upskill, but our system needs reform. Too many people have been sidelined and left without the skills to seize opportunity. One in eight young people are not in employment, education or training. We can, and we must, do more to break down the barriers to learning that too many people still face. We need a system that is firing on all cylinders. \p Gareth Snell: The figure in Stoke-on-Trent is even more stark, with 22% of young people not in education, employment or training. We have a wonderful ecosystem of colleges, with Stoke sixth form college, Stoke-on-Trent college and the University of Staffordshire, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, we also have small and medium-sized organisations. Can the Secretary of State set out how this Bill will help an organisation such as the Spark Group, run by Dan Canavan, to tap into opportunities in order to spread his ability to help those young people into well-paid jobs in my community? \p Bridget Phillipson: My hon. Friend names a fantastic business in his constituency and the contribution that it makes. There is a lot more that we need to do to support smaller employers to be in a stronger position to benefit from apprenticeships.

This Bill will bring together the many disparate parts of a very fragmented system, which employers, particularly smaller employers, often find hard to navigate the right way through, and are not always clear about the best training and qualification routes in order to find the people that they need. Also, the changes we have made to English and maths in particular will support employers to create 10,000 additional apprenticeships every single year.[Official Report, 26 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 6WC.] (Correction) This was a call that we heard loud and clear from employers, and it is a simple, straightforward change that will open up opportunities for people across our country. They will still have the English and maths standards as part of their apprenticeship, but they will no longer be held back by some of the red tape that has denied them the chance to get on in life.

The skills system that we have right now is too fragmented, too confusing and too tangled up across too many organisations. There is no single source of truth, no single organisation able to zoom out and see the big problems and no single authority able to bring the sector together to solve them. The result is a system that amounts to less than the sum of its parts. For young people, it can be hard to know where the opportunities lie. Adults looking to upskill or reskill and working people hoping for a fresh start are too often met with confusion, not clarity. They are presented with a muddling mix of options when they need clear pathways to great careers.

It is no better for employers. They tell us that the system is difficult to navigate and slow to respond. They tell us that they are too often shut out of course design and that their voices are too often not heard. The result is frustration. Learners and employers are frustrated, and they are right to be frustrated. Many businesses do a good job of investing in the skills of their workforce, but others simply are not spending enough.

Investment is at its lowest since 2011 at just half the EU average. We must empower businesses to reverse the trend by investing in their employees, and for that, we need to move forward. There will always remain a strong and galvanising role for competition, but where it is harmful, adds complexity, duplicates efforts or twists incentives, we will balance it with supportive co-ordination to ensure that all parts of the system are pulling in the right direction.

Here is our vision and the change we need. From sidelined to supported, we need a system that helps everyone so that businesses can secure the skilled workforce they need. From fragmented to coherent, we need a system defined by clear and powerful pathways to success and towards effective co-ordination. We also need a system of partnership with everyone pulling together towards the same goals. That is the change that Skills England will oversee.

This Labour Government are a mission-led Government with a plan for change, and skills are essential to Labour’s missions to drive economic growth and break down the barriers to opportunity. In fact, skills go way beyond that. Skills training contributes across our society, and great skills training driven by Skills England, supported by my Department, guided by the wisdom of colleges, universities, businesses, mayors and trade unions, and directed by national priorities and local communities is the skills system we need. It is a system that will drive forward all our missions. It will help us fix our NHS, create clean energy and deliver safer streets.

Skills are the fuel that will drive a decade of national renewal, which is vital for our plan for change. That is why earlier this month we unveiled our plans to help thousands more apprentices to qualify every year. That means more people with the right skills in high-demand sectors from social care to construction and beyond. We have listened to what businesses have told us. We will shorten the minimum length of apprenticeships and put employers in charge of decisions on English and maths requirements for adults.

Last November, the Government announced £140 million of investment in homebuilding skills hubs. Once fully up to speed, the hubs will deliver more than 5,000 fast-track apprenticeships a year, helping to build the extra homes that the people of this country desperately need. We are driving change for our skills system, and Skills England is leading the charge. It will assess the skills needed on the ground regionally and nationally now and in the years to come. Where skills evolve rapidly and where new and exciting technologies are accelerating from AI to clean energy, Skills England will be ready to give employers the fast and flexible support they need. \p Tom Hayes: I represent a coastal community. Coastal communities have been forgotten over the past 14 years almost as much as the skills agenda. In my constituency, Bournemouth and Poole college led by Phil Sayles, who is doing incredible work, is about to open the green energy construction campus in April, which will enable solar, heat pump and rainwater capture skills to be taught to apprentices and trainees. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the college, and does she agree that colleges like that one are critical to achieving clean power by 2030? \p Bridget Phillipson: I am delighted to hear my hon. Friend’s experience from Bournemouth. Our colleges are a crucial part of how we ensure that we have the skills we need in our economy, but also how we will drive forward our agenda on clean energy. He is also right to identify the enormous opportunities for jobs, growth and training, as well as, crucially, the imperative of ensuring that we have stability and security in our energy supply, so that never again are we so exposed to the fluctuations of energy markets that happened because of the invasion of Ukraine. \p Luke Taylor: I want to amplify the valuable skills that our colleges are teaching in renewable technologies. I recently visited South Thames college in Wandsworth, where I saw the labs it has set up to teach the installation of heat pumps and other renewable technologies. The main challenge that the college faces is finding staff to teach the classes and to take on the apprentices and all the other learners. What support will the Government give to colleges to ensure that they can recruit experienced individuals to pass on those skills to the apprentices, so that we can provide the workforces that we dearly need? \p Bridget Phillipson: The hon. Gentleman is right about the challenges across the further education sector. Sadly, we know those challenges all too well after 14 years of failure under the Conservatives. We recognise the enormous  opportunity that comes from investing in our fantastic colleges. That is why at the Budget we announced an extra £300 million of additional revenue for further education and £300 million of new capital investment. That also builds on our investment to extend targeted retention incentive payments of up to £6,000 after tax to eligible early career FE teachers in key subject areas. Our FE sector will have a crucial role to play in our mission for growth and opportunity, and he is right to draw attention to that.

Skills England will be ready to give employers the fast and flexible support they need. While updates to courses in the past have been sluggish and left behind by new technology, the Bill will help us keep up with the pace of change. Skills England will draw on high-quality data. It will design courses that are demand-led and shaped from the ground up by employers. Employers should be in no doubt that they will have a critical role in course design and delivery. That is why I have appointed Phil Smith to chair Skills England. Phil brings a wealth of business expertise from his two decades leading Cisco and will ensure that employers are at the heart of Skills England. I have appointed Sir David Bell as vice-chair, drawing on his wealth of experience across education and Whitehall. I have also appointed Tessa Griffiths and Sarah Maclean as chief executive on a job-share basis, with Gemma Marsh as deputy chief executive. They will provide strong, independent leadership to move the skills system forward. Skills England will be held accountable by an independent board, and the Bill requires a report to be published and laid before Parliament, setting out the impact on technical education and apprenticeships of the exercise of the functions in the measure.

The clear relationship between the Department and Skills England is governed by a public framework document, which will be published for all to see. It will be a core constitutional document produced in line with guidance from the Treasury, making clear the different roles of my Department and Skills England. Skills England will reach across the country. It will not be trapped in Whitehall but spread to every town and city, because growth and employment must benefit every part of the country, not just where it is easy to drive growth. That means being ambitious, especially in areas that have been overlooked for decades, because talent and aspiration are no less present in those places.

Skills England will drive co-ordinated action to meet regional and national skills needs at all levels and in all places. It will work closely with mayoral strategic authorities and local and regional organisations, and it will connect with counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Skills England will simplify the system by combining functions within one powerful body and pulling together the disparate strands of Departments, local leaders, colleges, universities and training providers and weaving them into a coherent offer for businesses and learners alike.

To see why the skills revolution is so important for growth and why we must take skills seriously again, we should look no further than the UK’s stalling productivity over the last decade and a half, dragging down our economy and cutting off hopes of higher incomes for workers. The skills system is central because, despite all its problems, the expansion of workforce skills drove a third of average annual productivity growth between  2001 and 2019. Here we have a chance. Here we see what is at stake. If we get this right by investing in our people and backing Skills England, we can drive productivity and get economic growth back on track. At the same time, we can give working people power and choice because that is what good skills can offer: the chance for them to take control of their careers and take advantage of the opportunities that our economy will create. That is why Skills England will work to support the forthcoming industrial strategy unveiled by the Chancellor last November. The next phase of its work will provide further evidence on the strategy’s eight growth-driving sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, the creative industries, defence, digital, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services. Added to those are two more: construction and healthcare.

Skills England will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Council, which will monitor the strategy’s progress against clear objectives. \p Toby Perkins: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. She is speaking incredibly powerfully and passionately about the role of Skills England, and I share her commitment and excitement about it, but as she knows, this IfATE Bill abolishes IfATE rather than creating Skills England. There were those who believed that putting Skills England on a statutory footing as an independent body, rather than keeping it in the Department, might have been the way to go. Will she explain to the House why she has taken this approach, and why she believes that Skills England will, as a body in her Department rather than as a truly independent body, have the strength and respect in the sector that it so badly needs? \p Bridget Phillipson: I will set out the reason primarily and then say a little about the way in which Skills England will operate. First, the need to do it in this way is one of time and speed. As I hope I have set out to the House, the need to act is urgent; we must get on with this and ensure that we tackle the chronic skills shortages right across our country—there is no time to waste. The Government are determined to drive opportunity and growth in every corner of our country. Further delays to that will hold back not just growth but opportunities.

When it comes to the function of Skills England and how it will operate, it will be an Executive agency of the Department for Education. It will have the independence that it needs to perform its role effectively, with a robust governance and accountability framework and a chair who brings an enormous wealth of experience from business. A strong, independent board, chaired by Phil Smith, will balance operational independence with proximity to Government. It will operate in the same way that many Executive agencies, such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, already operate.

As with any new arm’s length body, in the next 18 to 24 months we will review how Skills England is functioning, to consider whether it still exists within the best model. [Interruption.] That is entirely in keeping with the way in which arm’s length bodies are routinely considered by the Government. I am surprised that Conservative Members are surprised, because that is simply how these things are done, as they know all too well. If they are content to allow drift and delay, they will hold back  opportunity for people across our country; they will hold back the demand that businesses rightly lay at our door to get on with the job of creating the conditions in which they can deliver more apprenticeship starts, more opportunities, and more chances to learn and upskill.

Skills England will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Council, which will monitor the strategy’s progress against clear objectives. The Skills England chair will have a permanent seat on the council—that really matters. By 2035 there will be at least 1.4 million new jobs. Our clean energy mission will rely on talented people with the expertise to power our greener future. The pace of technological change, including artificial intelligence, is accelerating, and it brings huge opportunities for our economy. However, to seize those opportunities, firms need a ready supply of people with the right skills. We will nurture home-grown talent in all regions so that people have the skills they need for those exciting jobs of the future.

Skills England will work with the Migration Advisory Committee to ensure that training in England accounts for the overall need of the labour market and to reduce the reliance of some sectors on labour from abroad. \p Gareth Snell: I thank the Secretary of State for being so generous with her time. I absolutely support her ambition of ensuring that we have the skills for the jobs of the future. Will she say a little about how Skills England will support foundational manufacturing industries, such as ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent, which will not be prioritised in the industrial strategy but still have a lot to offer our economy and are crying out for skills from local people? If we can get that right, we can grow our own economy, and that is true levelling up in my opinion. \p Bridget Phillipson: My hon. Friend always champions the ceramics industry in his constituency. We have had many conversations on that topic, and he is absolutely right to put it into context. Skills England will benefit the ceramics industry and his constituents because we will be able to move much more rapidly to make changes to qualifications and training requirements in order to meet the needs of employers, with further flexibility, shorter courses, and foundation apprenticeships for young people for the chance to get on, including in long-standing traditional industries as well as in future jobs and opportunities.

The Bill is a crucial leap forward, bringing the different parts of the skills system closer together, and it paves the way for Skills England. It transfers the current functions of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to the Secretary of State, not to exercise power from Westminster, but to empower the expert leadership of Skills England to drive the change we need. Bringing those functions to Skills England will place the content and design of technical qualifications at the heart of our skills system, where they belong.

Skills England has existed in shadow form since Labour took power and began the work of change in July. It set out its first “state of the nation” report into skills gaps in our economy in September. Skills England is moving ahead. The leadership is in place, and by laying the groundwork for a swift transition to Skills England, we are moving a step closer towards a joined-up skills system.

At its heart, this Bill is about growth and opportunity—growth for our economy, and opportunity for our people—and there is no time to waste. We need action, not delay. The people of this country need better jobs, higher wages and brighter futures; no more vacancies unfilled due to a lack of skills, no more chances missed and no more growth lost. We need change now, not change pushed back to some foggy future, so we are pushing ahead.

This is legislation that builds on what has come before but demands more—more cohesion, more dynamism and more ambition. That is how we break down the barriers to opportunity, that is how we fire up the engines of economic growth, and that is how we deliver the future that this country deserves—the bright hope that our best days lie ahead of us. I commend this Bill to the House. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the shadow Secretary of State. \p Laura Trott: I rise to speak on a piece of legislation that poses more risks than benefits and proves that there is not parity of esteem for technical and academic qualifications within the Government. The Secretary of State is putting forward a Bill that allows her personally to write each apprenticeship assessment. Just in case you think I am exaggerating, Madam Deputy Speaker, we can see it in the explanatory notes. The Bill provides

“the option for each standard and apprenticeship assessment plan to be prepared by the Secretary of State”.

Madam Deputy Speaker, can you imagine the outcry if this was done with history GCSEs? If it were a Conservative Government taking these powers, there would be howls of outrage from the Labour party. It is extraordinary that the Government are, contrary to the words of the Secretary of State today, cutting out employers and giving sole discretion to the Secretary of State. They would not allow it with academic qualifications; we must not allow it with vocational ones.

I acknowledge the statement made in the other place about clarifying the situations when the Government envisage the Secretary of State intervening, but the specific criteria for using this power should be on the face of the Bill. At the moment, the Secretary of State has carte blanche to do whatever she likes, and we know from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that that is a very bad idea. Can the Minister confirm that there will be some restrictions, and will the Government put those on the face of the Bill?

The Bill is another manifestation of the Department for Education’s centralisation spree. As with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, everything must be controlled by the Secretary of State, and no innovation is allowed. The Bill abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education—shortened to IfATE—and transfers its functions to the Secretary of State, in effect absorbing them into the Department for Education. The Government say that they will set up Skills England, but there are no details on the plans for Skills England in the Bill, or on how the Government’s proposed changes to the funding of skills-based qualifications will work in practice.

Simply creating a new agency will not address any of the issues that we need to address within the skills system. Even putting aside my severe doubts about the wisdom of progressing down this road in the first place, the very least the Government could provide the House with is some information on Skills England itself in the Bill. The only thing we know from debates in the other place—the Secretary of State has confirmed it today—is that Skills England will not be on a statutory footing and therefore will unquestionably be less independent than IfATE. Can the Secretary of State explain why this is an improvement?

This matters because the framework document published in the autumn is, at best, vague and, at worst, silent on the role of employers. There are some statements in the section on aims saying that employers will be engaged in the preparation of occupational standards, but it does not say how. Does the Secretary of State think that she knows better than employers? I urge her to explain why employers are so much less visible in the framework document, or to agree to amend the Bill. Reducing the role of employers will harm the apprenticeship system.

The change will also create unnecessary turmoil in the skills system. A cross-party amendment was passed in the other place to try to minimise the impact that this uncertain upheaval will have. The amendment will delay the provisions of the Bill to ensure that Skills England has time to set up before taking on its role and to ensure that the administrative duties do not get in the way of providing quality apprenticeships. That seems the bare minimum of what we would expect, and I hope the Government will not oppose that amendment, because to do so would be absurd.

The skills system needs a stable landscape, but the Bill presents real risks with no obvious benefits: risks that the Government will erode standards in our skills system by removing the relationship with the employer and replacing it with diktat from the Secretary of State; risks of poor leadership by replacing a good organisation, which is liked by employers and apprentices, with an unknown and undefined body. \p Toby Perkins: I am listening carefully to the right hon. Lady. She seems to be evangelising the role of IfATE, but I have heard far stronger criticisms of it than she appears to make. Is her position that IfATE does not have many faults and should carry on the way it is, or does she think that the organisation’s remit has grown and is vague, and most employers feel that it is a block to getting the standards they need, rather than the vehicle for that, as she seems to suggest? \p Laura Trott: I have huge respect for the hon. Gentleman and thought his earlier question was spot on. There is much that needs to be improved, but that is much less vague than Skills England, which is what we have in front of us at the moment. There are risks of distraction, with the time and cost involved in creating a new agency in the Department for Education. If the Government were serious about progressing quickly with the urgent strategic issues that I accept are needed in skills reform, the most effective step would be to build on the success of IfATE, rather than dismantling it. Instead, the Bill threatens to undo much of the progress made under successive Conservative Governments in building a world-class apprenticeships and technical education system. It  is fiddling for no reason, change for no purpose and, as is so often the case with this Government, the opposite of what is required. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the Chair of the Education Committee. \p Helen Hayes: The further education and skills sector is of strategic importance, and equipping our workforce with the skills that employers need is critical for economic growth. Ensuring that there are opportunities for young people and those mid-career to access high-quality training in order to enhance and develop their skills is vital for breaking down the barriers to opportunity that hold back far too many people. For far too long, the further education and skills sector has been the Cinderella service of our education system, patronised with lip service about how important it is, always regarded as second best, and never allocated the level of funding needed to really deliver.

Despite the fact that at the very peak only around one third of 18-year-olds go on to university, our school system is overwhelmingly orientated to communicate to young people that university is the option they should all aim for, rather than supporting a plurality of education options post-18, all of which can equip them well for a successful career. That has created a postcode lottery in which the high-quality further education and training opportunities that are available in some parts of the country are not available everywhere. \p John Hayes: The hon. Lady is making a profoundly important point that reinforces what I said earlier about careers advice and guidance. When I was skills Minister, I introduced a statutory duty on providers to make available free and independent advice. The problem is that that is often done by means of the internet. Schools will refer students to the internet, rather than bring people such as independent advisers into the school to guide them. She is right that the best solution to the problem she sets out is exactly that kind of involvement from careers advisers with students. \p Helen Hayes: I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I was delighted recently to visit a school in my constituency, and a careers fair that gave young people the opportunity to meet many employers and providers of further education face to face, in order to give real meaning and reality to what such opportunities might provide in the future. It is important that young people have those opportunities.

Recently, I was delighted to visit the Lambeth college campus in Vauxhall, which is part of the Southbank University group, with my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). We met young people engaged in cutting-edge training in robotics, renewable energy installation, dental technology and game design and production. They were being equipped with valuable skills to help them to access high-quality jobs, with the possibility, in some cases, of progressing their training all the way to degree level at the university.

The college is a good example of a strategic vision being applied to skills at a local level to ensure that employers’ needs are being met, and that the best possible   opportunities are made available to young people, but not everywhere can benefit from such a strategic approach at present. I therefore welcome the Bill, which will formally establish Skills England. It is encouraging that this Government are giving further education and skills the strategic prominence they need, and seeking to establish an effective national agency to deliver a step change in the strategy that underpins our approach to skills and the quality and availability of training opportunities.

Skills England has been operating in shadow form within the Department for Education since July last year. Following the passage of the Bill, it will become an executive agency. This important Bill will work to underpin many of the strategic aims of the Government, including the delivery of economic growth, the skills to provide the additional 1.5 million homes that need to be built, and the skills to drive the urgently needed transition of our energy sector to achieve net zero, and the much-needed improvements in our national health service and in social care.

As the first Skills England report highlights, we currently have a fragmented and confusing landscape that lets down learners, frustrates businesses and holds back growth. The current system that the Government inherited has been badly neglected and urgent action is needed to deliver the change and scale of ambition required.

While I welcome the Bill, there are a number of issues on which I would be grateful for further clarity from the Government. The Bill does not provide a statutory underpinning for Skills England, meaning that the Secretary of State and future Secretaries of State can make fundamental changes to Skills England or close it down without the consent of Parliament. That calls into question the ability of Skills England to deliver a stable long-term underpinning of the skills system over a period of time. I understand the Government’s urgency, but it is important that in delivering this change Skills England is placed on a really solid foundation.

In order to be effective in delivering the skills system that our country needs, Skills England will need to have leverage with a number of different Government Departments beyond the Department for Education, yet the chief executive of Skills England is the equivalent of a director-level post in the civil service, not a director general, calling into question the extent to which appropriately senior people from across Government will be required to act on its recommendations and work in effective partnership. As the Bill progresses, the Government should consider the seniority of the CEO in that light.

Partnership working with key stakeholders outside Government, including training providers, trade unions, employers and devolved authorities will also be critical to the success of Skills England, but none of that is written into the Bill, and the ways in which Skills England will be held accountable for effective partnership working are unclear. Will the Secretary of State take further action to address that?

The impact statement for the Bill states that there may be a drop in apprenticeship starts while the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s functions are transferred to the Secretary of State and then to Skills England, with a disproportionate impact on adult apprenticeships, disadvantaged learners and disadvantaged  regions. Will the Secretary of State explain what steps she will take to minimise and mitigate that potential short-term drop?

The success of Skills England will depend on a series of wider factors that should be considered at the point at which it is being established. There is a significant issue with the funding of sixth form colleges, particularly around inequities in pay between teachers in schools and colleges, exacerbated by the failure to extend the recent pay increase to teachers to those employed by colleges. It cannot be right that a teacher in a college can be paid less than a teacher in a school sixth form for teaching exactly the same subject.

To drive parity of esteem between pupils following an academic route and those following a vocational route, it is important that sixth form colleges are able to both recruit and retain teachers. That means addressing the lower pay in sixth form colleges compared with schools, and the gap between teacher salaries and the salaries that teachers could receive in industry. It is a real problem for colleges seeking to recruit teachers of vocational subjects that those who have the skills to teach trade can often earn far more by practising that trade in the private sector. There is currently very little obligation on industry to release staff to deliver vocational education or to help to secure the pipeline of vocational teachers, including through post-retirement options. The Government should give further consideration to the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers in the further education sector.

For some students in the further education sector, their school days have not been the happiest days of their lives. College or an apprenticeship should be the place where they start to find the things that they can excel at and where their confidence is built because they start to succeed. The importance of a functional level of English and maths is universally accepted and understood, so something is badly wrong in our education system when 38% of students do not achieve a grade 3 or above in English and maths at GCSE. The cycle of failure ends up continuing in the FE sector, which requires them to resit again and again. There must be a better way to ensure the functional skills in these subjects that employers need within further education, while enabling young people genuinely to succeed, build their confidence and thrive.

Finally, I will raise the issue of the huge differential in the information provided to sixth form students as they decide on their next steps after school or college—a point made by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) earlier in the debate. When meeting with skills providers and school leaders in my constituency recently, many participants highlighted how a move to university was often presented as a natural, secure step, with multiple options and a well-trodden path through the UCAS process, while vocational options, including apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships, were not presented with the same clarity or coherence, or even within the same timeframe. That makes it harder for teachers to advise their students and for parents to have confidence in pathways that may appear less predictable and secure. If we want to see true parity of esteem between academic and vocational routes, that needs to change, and I hope that it will be a priority for the newly established Skills England.

The Education Committee recognises the strategic importance of further education and skills, and we have recently launched a substantial inquiry that aims to understand how the further education system can better equip young people with skills and qualifications for a range of sectors experiencing labour shortages while opening up a wider range of opportunities to young people and mid-career switchers. We will make our recommendations to the Government in due course, and we look forward to playing our part in scrutinising the work of Skills England. \p Nusrat Ghani: I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. \p Ian Sollom: I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill because, while acknowledging the importance of reforming the delivery of skills and technical education, it fails to establish Skills England as a statutory independent body; because it centralises decision-making power in the hands of the Secretary of State; because it provides for the abolition of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education without ensuring a legally defined replacement; and because it lacks provisions to ensure that Skills England is directly accountable to Parliament.”

The Government are right that our skills system needs reform. The Liberal Democrats agree with the Secretary of State that our current fragmented and confusing skills landscape lets down learners, frustrates businesses and holds back growth, as she made clear in her foreword to Skills England’s first report in the autumn.

I and my hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches share the ambition to build a high-skill, high-productivity workforce that can meet our economy’s needs, and reform is essential for that ambition to be realised. Like many in the sector, we were encouraged to hear the Government prioritising that last July in the King’s Speech, with the statement:

“My Government will establish Skills England which will have a new partnership with employers at its heart”,

but the Bill before us does not establish Skills England at all; it simply abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers the functions directly to the Secretary of State. We need a strong, independent skills body with proper parliamentary oversight and genuine employer engagement, but this Bill delivers a centralisation of power in the hands of Ministers.

There are examples of bodies that combine independence and strong democratic accountability for the most critical policy areas. The Office for Budget Responsibility has statutory independence while being directly accountable to Parliament through the Treasury Committee. Its leadership is subject to parliamentary approval, its reports must be laid before Parliament and it has clear statutory duties to ensure transparency. The Climate Change Committee similarly has a clear statutory basis that ensures it can provide independent advice while being properly scrutinised by Parliament, yet the framework proposed for Skills England—or at least the draft framework for illustrative purposes, which is all that we have seen so far—falls far short of those models. Despite promises about working across Government, its governance  structure is heavily Department for Education-centric. There are no formal mechanisms for co-ordination with other key Departments; there is no cross-departmental board representation; and there is no clear structure for aligning with bodies such as the Migration Advisory Committee, just aspiration. Are we to assume that the Government think that skills policy is not so critical to their mission that it warrants a stronger framework than the one we have seen?

This matters profoundly when we consider the scale of cross-Government co-ordination required. Skills England must work with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council on future workforce needs; with the Migration Advisory Committee on reducing reliance on overseas workers; with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on green skills; with the Department for Work and Pensions on employment programmes; with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on priority sectors; and with the Department of Health and Social Care on workforce planning. Particularly in light of recent developments, Skills England must also support the Government’s strategy for defence and the critical industries and skills that we will need for our defence. As proposed, though, it will lack even director general status, meaning that it will struggle to drive the co-ordination of skills that the system so desperately needs. \p John Hayes: The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for the independence of Skills England. He will know that Government Departments resist independence like most people resist disease, but his point is important because to get the kind of lateral action he describes in respect of the nuclear industry or other industries, it will be necessary for the body created to have a reach that Government Departments do not tend to have. \p Ian Sollom: I agree. That cross-departmental and cross-industry working is a critical reason for the need for a truly independent body.

The implication for standards development is also concerning. Where we have had employer-led trailblazer groups setting standards, the Secretary of State can now bypass employers entirely. In limited circumstances and for minor changes, that will have the benefit of speeding up the review process, which has been frustrating for employers. There are, however, no safeguards to prevent ministerial control becoming the default approach. Instead of giving businesses a structural role, maximising responsiveness, the Bill makes engagement merely consultative. That speaks to a broader point: Skills England’s credibility with employers will be key if those employers are to buy into the Government’s skills vision for the country. Has the Secretary of State not at least considered the possibility that the proposed structure, whereby programmes can be driven at her whim or those of her successors, undermines that much-needed credibility from the start?

The Government’s own impact assessment worries that there will be a

“slowdown in the growth rate of new apprenticeships and technical education courses due to potential delays in the approvals process”

caused by this new approach, and it reveals who will pay the price. It is adult learners, who make up 48% of apprentices and often face the greatest barriers to retraining; learners from our most deprived communities, whose  achievement rates are already eight percentage points lower than those from affluent areas; and learners in regions such as the north-east, where apprenticeship starts are already lower and where every reduction in opportunity has a disproportionate effect. \p Toby Perkins: I see that the hon. Gentleman has received the briefing from the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. He appears to be reading it virtually word for word; I do not know whether he contributed anything to the speech, but it has been very interesting to hear what he has said.

With the Bill having been through the House of Lords, the hon. Gentleman is proposing a wrecking amendment that would kill it. Although I sympathise with some of the points in his amendment, does he not think that with the reassurances that we have heard from the Secretary of State—which can be scrutinised over the course of this Bill’s progress—we can at least get Skills England set up at speed, so that it can take on the shape he is suggesting in future? The hon. Gentleman’s proposed approach would cancel all this reform. It would go right back to square one and stop reform dead in its tracks. \p Ian Sollom: I have looked beyond the AELP briefing, thank you very much. This is a critical area of Government policy, and it is important to get it right from the start. That is just a difference of approach.

As my noble Friend Baroness Garden said in the other place, this looks like an innocuous little Bill, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye. It represents a fundamental shift away from employer leadership in our skills system towards ministerial whim, a shift away from statutory independence towards departmental convenience, and a shift away from proper parliamentary accountability towards rule by regulation. The Government may argue that this is just an enabling Bill to pave the way for Skills England, but that is precisely the problem. It enables the wrong thing—it enables centralisation when we need independence, it enables ministerial control when we need employer leadership, and it enables opacity when we need accountability. \p Andrew Pakes: The hon. Member and I share a county, and he will be aware that in a place such as mine, we have seen the decimation of level 2 and 3 apprenticeships. Does he not recognise that the biggest concern I hear from employers is that the current system is centralised and letting down working-class families in seats like mine? What they want is Skills England. No employer has been to see me to speak against Skills England, but many have been to speak to me against the current system, because it does not give us flexibility. What might be all right for academic policy in Cambridge will not be all right in Peterborough. We need the change delivered now. \p Ian Sollom: I point out that I represent St Neots, which is not Cambridge, and many employers have spoken to me about their concerns about Skills England and the lack of clarity on its future.

We cannot support this Bill. That is not because we oppose reform—we desperately need it—but because centralising power in the hands of Ministers, removing proper scrutiny and weakening employer involvement  in our skills system will make things worse, ultimately. Learners, employers and our economy deserve better than this overcentralisation of power. \p Gareth Snell: Will the hon. Member give way? \p Ian Sollom: I am going to finish now.

Learners and employers deserve a properly independent Skills England with the authority and accountability to drive real change. I urge the Government to think again and bring forward legislation that delivers the genuine reform that our skills system needs. \p Lee Barron: I speak today in support of this much-needed Bill, and I ask Members to do the same. This Bill is not just a piece of legislation, but the foundation for an English skills revolution. It will give our workforce the right tools to boost our economy, fix the skills shortages and provide real opportunities for millions across the country.

I started off as an apprentice when I left school at 16. The academic school did not work for me as far as my education was concerned, but the apprenticeship gave me opportunities that I could not have otherwise reached. It got me into the world of work. It got me active and away from a desk, and it led me on to a path that, frankly, the classroom could not provide. For too long—this has already been said today—vocational qualifications have been looked down on and seen as second-rate, but they allow people to reach their full potential in a way that fits in with them.

This Bill is a crucial step in delivering the Government’s manifesto promise to set up Skills England, which will take a smart, joined-up approach to ensuring our workforce has the skills our economy needs. By bringing businesses, training providers, unions and local leaders together under one roof, we can finally build a system that works for everybody. Skills England will map out where we are falling short, make sure training fits with what businesses actually need, and oversee the new growth and skills levy, which will replace the existing apprenticeship levy. This means that businesses can put money into the right training at the right time, leaving both workers and employers with more.

Let us be honest: we are in a skills crisis. In construction, health and social care, engineering and digital industries, we simply do not have enough trained workers, which is why we have to move so speedily. According to the 2022 employer skills survey, more than a third of job vacancies are a result of people not having the right skills—the skills that we need—and that is not acceptable. We cannot allow a lack of training to hold our economy back, which is exactly what is happening at the moment. The Bill will ensure that apprenticeships, T-levels and technical qualifications match what employers need. Whether those involved are young people starting out or adults reskilling, they will know that they are on the path to a stable, well-paid job.

We must not ignore the damage done by those who look down on vocational training. We need to change the way in which we talk about skills, apprenticeships and lifelong learning, because those careers are not a back-up plan but a first-class route to success. The Bill represents a move to challenge the idea that the only  way to get ahead is through university. It shows that we are serious about supporting technical skills so that no matter what path people choose, they have what they need to thrive in life and in work. I say to Members, “Ask yourselves this: do you want a skills system that actually works? Do you want to help build a workforce that is properly trained, valued and paid?” This Bill is our chance to fix skills training in England. It will give apprenticeships and technical education the attention, funding, and respect that they deserve. It will bring order, clarity and proper co-ordination, elements that our system has been lacking for too long.

In September I visited Corby technical school in my constituency, which is led by Shona Lomas. I was told about its approved partners scheme, a leading scheme in the area, which brings in business partners who support children through school, offer work experience and provide apprenticeships. When that school opened, it was looked down upon. It was talked down. People talked as though the kids who were not bright enough went to that school. That is wrong, because the kids who go to that school are well supported, getting on with partnerships and getting on in life through apprenticeships. The CTS scheme has now grown to 119 partners, including local schools, colleges and major local employers, and it has seen a rise in awareness and interest since the recent National Apprenticeship Week. Opportunities such as those give young people the skills and confidence that they need to get on in life.

We have more brilliant apprenticeships schemes throughout my constituency—some of which I visited recently—including those at 7formation, Asda, Carmack Engineering, Weetabix and RS Components, which was ranked 82nd in last year’s list of the top apprenticeship employers in the country. Those businesses are delivering what they can, but the Bill gives them the freedom and flexibility to deliver more. Most important, it provides the links that will enable us to build the future and the growth that our economy needs. These are the kinds of opportunities that we can grow and spread through Skills England and the powers in the Bill. Let us get our system in step with an industrial strategy, joined with local economies, to bring the skills revolution that our country so desperately needs. We can do that with the Bill. \p Ashley Fox: This Bill is important for the future of technical education and apprenticeships in our country, and I accept that the Government’s intention is to streamline the governance and management of skills. However, I believe that, in its current form, the Bill threatens to centralise the system to such an extent that it may undermine the independence and effectiveness of our skills system.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education was established with the clear purpose of ensuring that apprenticeship standards and assessments were determined with the input of employers, education providers and industry experts. I fear that by abolishing this body in favour of a group of civil servants appointed by the Secretary of State, the Government will make technical education less responsive to the needs of the labour market. The Bill removes the requirement to publish regular reviews of occupational standards and apprenticeship assessment plans. The Government say  that removing this duty allows for much greater flexibility, but they are doing so without ensuring that the views of employers, educators and other relevant bodies will continue to be heard and considered.

The Bill grants the Secretary of State power to determine the standards and assessments that will be used to measure progress in technical education. No longer will these decisions be made by a broad group of stakeholders, including employers and sector specialists. What does all this mean for our workforce, and what does it mean for learners? It means that we are at risk of creating a system that is more distant, less responsive and potentially less effective. When decisions are made by civil servants without the input of those on the ground—those directly impacted by these decisions—we risk losing touch with the realities of the skills landscape. \p Luke Murphy: I am afraid the hon. Member and the shadow Secretary of State speak as if the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education was an unblemished success. Between 2018-19 and 2023-24, apprenticeship starts in England per capita dropped by 16%, so how is it a responsive system? I think the House would be better served if Opposition Members acknowledged that. I understand why he is focused on structures, because that is in part what the Bill focuses on, but surely we should also be focused on outcomes, on which the previous Government were not delivering. \p Ashley Fox: The pandemic clearly had something to do with that reduction. I would not say the system is perfect, but I fear that replacing it with a committee of civil servants appointed by the Secretary of State is likely to be less successful still.

Amendments have been made in the other place to address some of these concerns. Specifically, a one-year delay was added between the establishment of Skills England and the commencement of the Bill, which would allow for a more effective transition and give Skills England a better chance of getting up and running. It is crucial that we do not damage the very real progress that was made on technical education under the last Government. During the general election, my party pledged to raise the number of people in high-skilled apprenticeships by 100,000 per year, representing a 30% rise. This was to recognise that, for many young people, apprenticeships represent a better way to enter the workplace than some university degrees.

Bridgwater and Taunton College, based in my constituency, is the UK’s largest provider of apprenticeships, supporting thousands of learners in achieving their career ambitions. With over 120 apprenticeship programmes, the college offers exceptional opportunities for individuals to gain hands-on experience and develop the skills needed for today’s competitive job market. BTC’s success is reflected in its recent achievements, such as its registered nurse degree apprenticeship, which recruited 53 apprentices in the 2023-24 academic year alone. The college’s commitment to employer engagement and industry-aligned training is at the heart of its success. It has strong partnerships with employers of all sizes, ensuring that its apprenticeship programmes meet local and national skill needs.

While BTC welcomes the streamlining of the management of apprenticeships, it is clear that these changes must not reduce the quality of education and  support provided to apprentices. As it rightly points out, it is crucial that these changes do not compromise the wellbeing of students or the high standards of education they have come to expect. I hope that the new framework will continue to uphold these standards and ensure that the needs of both students and employers are met effectively. It is this type of local, industry-focused and employer-engaged approach to skills training that we should be fostering.

In conclusion, while I understand the desire to create a streamlined, more efficient system, the Government must be careful not to sacrifice the effectiveness and independence that have been the hallmark of our apprenticeship and technical education system. This Bill, in its current form, grants perhaps too much power to the Secretary of State with too little accountability. It risks diminishing the role of employers and learners, and weakening the checks and balances that have served us well, so I will continue to scrutinise this Bill as it proceeds through Parliament. \p Gurinder Josan: I am pleased to speak on Second Reading of this Bill, which I welcome for its focus on overhauling the skills system in England, particularly in relation to apprenticeships and technical education.

The creation of the Institute for Apprenticeships in 2017, with the subsequent addition of oversight for technical education, undoubtedly helped to create a system that increasingly includes higher-quality apprenticeships and increases the accessibility of these pathways to all. However, there are still too many in our country for whom unlocking their full potential remains a distant dream, which is fundamental to everything this Government have set out to achieve and to the future of our country.

The missions driving this Government—the incredible plan for change, the drive to become self-sufficient as a nation on energy, defence and security, the need to increase growth in our economy, and the drive to improve the lives of all our citizens—all require a comprehensive plan for improving skills. The basic provisions of the Bill will abolish the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfer its functions ultimately to Skills England; there are also proposed changes to the functions undertaken by Skills England. I believe these changes are important and will help to ensure a more simplified system with built-in flexibility, which will enable the skills system to take account of changing circumstances.

Conservative Members have spoken about the powers being taken up by the Secretary of State and the Department. I think building in accountability is important, so that we know that this Parliament can come back to Ministers and hold them to account on that. All this, I think, will help to ensure that our skills system is truly responsive to the needs of users, employers and our economy.

This matter is incredibly important to my constituents. Smethwick has a rich industrial heritage, and, while there have been significant changes over the years, the need for high-quality skills, education and training remains key. In Smethwick, significantly more people than the national average have no qualifications, significantly fewer have a level 4 qualification, and fewer than the  national average take part in apprenticeships. Too often, structural inconsistencies hold back our businesses and our people from flourishing. The lack of skills essential for work, the lack of specific skills required by employers in the place they are needed and the lack of options available to many for achieving these skills are just some of those issues. The Bill will help to streamline the skills system and ensure it is able to identify gaps, respond to changing circumstances and provide the skills needed for our businesses to flourish.

Last week, I met Robert Powell, the head of resource development at Keltruck Limited, which is the largest independently owned Scania distributor globally involved in the sale of new and used trucks, and is based in my constituency. Keltruck is a significant business, with 461 employees, including 51 apprentices—that is more than 10% of its employees. I was also informed that pretty much all the senior staff in the organisation have come up through the apprenticeship route—this is a business that really values apprenticeships. Many of its apprentices go on to great jobs in industry, for example, one went on to become chief mechanic at a top Formula 1 racing team. That is something to aspire to, and a story for somebody from Smethwick that is quite inspirational.

Being more responsive means listening to businesses. While Keltruck welcomes the recent announcement that English and maths qualifications will not be a requirement for apprenticeships, it is concerned that this requirement still applies to 16 to 18-year-olds beginning an apprenticeship. The story that was told to me was that some of their senior staff would not be in that position if they were required to have an English or maths qualification at age 16 or 18. I hope the Government can therefore look at that too to ensure that all our young people have access to the best quality apprenticeships.

In an illustration of the flexibility and freedom that can be brought to bear, I congratulate Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, and the West Midlands combined authority on launching a scheme last year to enable bigger businesses with an unspent apprenticeship levy to donate that to the West Midlands combined authority rather than returning it to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That has allowed the West Midlands combined authority to receive nearly £3 million to support 176 small and medium-sized enterprises and 411 apprentices through fully funded apprenticeships. That is an indication of how the freedoms brought about by the Bill could be utilised.

The two examples I have outlined show what can be achieved through a skills system that is more flexible and responsive, as well as being focused on excellence. That is incredibly important to my constituency and I therefore have no hesitation in supporting the Bill. \p Damian Hinds: We cannot just wish it into being, we cannot assume it or assert it, and we cannot legislate for it: esteem is in the eye of the esteemer and parity of esteem is earned. In technical and vocational education and training, that requires a clear and understandable set of qualifications with high standards and specifications that people know cannot be fiddled because they have been set independently. It  also requires equipping the individual with what they need to know and what they need to be able to do to succeed in a trade, craft or sector because those standards have been set by employers in that trade, craft or sector.

Those things were at the heart of the blueprint set out for technical and vocational education in this country, which has been followed for the last number of years. I say the blueprint, but it was also a red print, because it was the vision of Lord Sainsbury, a Labour peer. In his landmark report, he set out that we needed to reform the system so that we had a streamlined set of qualifications with clear paths to vocations. His recommendations included: a minimum length of time for apprenticeships, along with a minimum length of time off the job; for T-levels, a minimum length, which was much longer than usual for industrial placements; and standards set by employers. There was also the expansion of the remit of what was then the Institute for Apprenticeships to become the broader Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, linking apprenticeships and T-levels. Lord Sainsbury was also absolutely clear that specifying standards was not a job for Ministers in the Department for Education. It was a job for employers in the industries that would employ those apprentices.

We thought that those principles had become a matter of cross-party consensus. I am sorry to say that we were wrong. We have already had from this new Government a rowing back on the streamlining of qualifications. They have said that they will have shorter apprenticeships but still call them apprenticeships. Now, in the Bill, they will abolish—not reform or evolve—the body that is independent of Government, which sets the standards and ensures the integrity of the system.

Over 50 years in this country, we have had industrial training boards, the Manpower Services Commission, the Training Commission, training and enterprise councils—TECs—which were different from another TEC, the Technician Education Council, which existed alongside the Business Education Council, or BEC. BEC and TEC would eventually get together to give us the Business and Technology Education Council, or BTEC. There were national training organisations, the Learning and Skills Council, sector skills councils, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency, or SFA, which would later become the Education and Skills Funding Agency, or ESFA. Lately, we have had local skills improvement plans and IfATE.

Now we will have Skills England, which will be the 13th skills agency in 50 years. I say to Ministers that if all it takes to solve our skills challenges is a new body, a machinery of Government change, do they not think that one of the previous 12 would have managed that already? Ministers, especially those in new Governments, like to create something new, and, in this case, they think that they have something new that business wants, which is a quango—except Skills England is not even a quango. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for indulging me thus far in talking about all these things, because none of them is in the Bill. This Bill is not about Skills England. There are, I think, two mentions of Skills England in the text of the Bill and I think that they were both inserted by the House of Lords.

This Bill is about abolishing the independent institute that sets standards and passing those powers not to Skills England but to the Secretary of State. That is  what Skills England is. Ministers are bandying about all these fancy terms about agency this, and agency that, but it is part of the Department for Education. When it comes to working across Government, I have no reason to believe that this new part of the DFE will be any more equipped to work across Government, let alone across the whole economy, in solving some of these issues.

I love the Department for Education deeply, but, honestly, to operate across Government, to exert leverage and to get things done, I am afraid that the new body has to be in the Treasury or possibly in the Cabinet Office—not in the Education Department, the Business and Trade Department, or some of the others that could have been picked. Therefore, far from reflecting what business needs, what this legislation does is remove the requirement for business to set the standards for what their future employees will learn.

Following the vote in the House of Lords, the Government say that they will amend the Bill to be clear that they will still listen to business. I have the amendment here. What it says is that they will be clear about the times when they will listen to business and when they will not, which is not quite the same thing. In any case, if we are to make use of that business voice—if it is really going to mean something—it has to go hand in hand with the independence of the body. As things stand, even if the DFE is listening to business, it will still be the convenor. There will be no other body. Therefore, it will be the Government who are setting the standards for T-levels and for apprenticeships. I have asked the Minister this question twice already. We would not allow the Department for Education to set the standards for A-levels. We would always have that independently done and verified. Therefore if we would not let it happen for A-levels, how can it be right for T-levels? That is a rhetorical question, but it is a rhetorical question that Ministers should try to answer.

Baroness Smith of Malvern set out all the things that were being done to make Skills England something other than just another unit—a mini department—within the DFE. Today, the Secretary of State has set out some of her appointments, which sound like good appointments, to that body. But none of that is in legislation. That was all news to us. News of this set-up and the appointments of these individuals has come out since the announcement of Skills England. We are voting over the course of the next few weeks, as the Bill passes through its stages, on what will be an Act of Parliament. All that Act of Parliament will say is that those powers are coming to the office of the Secretary of State for Education, and it will be for them to decide in the future how to use them. It may well be that this team of Ministers is in power for 25 to 30 years, or it may not. I encourage all colleagues to think about that. When we legislate, we do so not just for the next 12 months, or even for the next four or five years; we legislate the law of the land, which, all other things being equal, stays in place.

I have some good news. I confidently predict that the Government will hit all their targets on the numbers of young people going through technical vocational education and training and attaining. That is because I think back to the 2000s, and the key target of more children getting five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, including in English and maths. Year after year they made that happen, even though, as we knew subsequently, we were tumbling down the international comparison tables.  About a dozen different ruses made those figures look better every year, and that was achieved even without having final control over the specification and what counted as passing or getting a particular grade. Let us imagine what the Government could achieve now.

The Government want a new body—fine. But to give it a chance to succeed for our economy and, crucially, for the young people who this ultimately is about, that body must be independent. I call on Ministers to take the opportunity, as this legislation goes through the House, to write that on the face of the Bill. We were encouraged by the Secretary of State saying earlier that, in any case, within two years they will review the status of Skills England with a view to perhaps making it a statutorily independent body. I encourage Ministers to take the opportunity in Committee to write that into the legislation. \p Anna Gelderd: I welcome the Bill’s commitment to broadening educational opportunities and skills training, which is so urgently needed. As one of those young people who undertook my qualifications in the early 2000s, I assure the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) that they were rigorous and got me where I am today.

Areas such as South East Cornwall have felt forgotten and left behind, cut off from the opportunities of economic growth in other parts of the UK. Labour understands the link between an individual’s education and training and the wider economic prosperity of our country. The Bill is an example of how we are rebuilding the country from the ground up, focusing on our young people. Where university or academic routes are not the right fit, apprenticeships offer vital, valuable alternatives not only for those enrolled, but for training providers, local businesses and the economy.

Where someone is born and the circumstances in which they grow up should not limit where they go or what they achieve. This mission-driven Labour Government are making education a priority. It is a far cry from the previous Government, which saw apprenticeships collapsing, businesses pleading for change and our young people paying the price. In South East Cornwall, local businesses lead by example. Wildanet, a home-grown company from Liskeard, is doing fantastic work to improve digital connectivity across Cornwall. It is investing in more than just cables and infrastructure. It is investing in our local people through training schemes that create meaningful opportunities for local residents and build the skills that directly benefit my community.

During National Apprenticeship Week last week, I had the privilege of attending Wildanet’s apprenticeship graduation ceremony. Celebrating the achievements of our young people was a reminder of what is possible when we support them through businesses such as Wildanet and through the Bill. Working in partnership with Truro and Penwith College, Wildanet’s ground-breaking apprenticeship scheme is a key part of the company’s DNA, creating new jobs and training people locally. It is vital that such opportunities in rural communities continue to build momentum, and that is what the Bill will deliver.

The Bill is a step in the right direction. I want to highlight the brilliant work of Truro and Penwith College, Cornwall’s only expert apprenticeship provider and one  of just five further education colleges in the UK that have been awarded this status by the Department for Education. The college’s staff, many of whom are resident in South East Cornwall, play a crucial role in shaping our local workforce and improving opportunities. Apprenticeship courses aligned with the Government’s mission and key industries will help people secure reliable, high-quality employment after completing their training.

In Cornwall, where incomes remain about 20% below the national average, this investment in skills and future-proofed jobs is essential. By strengthening our apprenticeships system, we can equip the next generation while also supporting local businesses such as Wildanet.

Cornwall was a driving force in Britain’s first industrial revolution. With the right foundations, we can once again lead the industries of the future, whether in renewable energy, marine technology or digital infrastructure. The first step is building those foundations. \p John Hayes: Much of this debate has been about the purpose of learning—the Secretary of State began in that spirit—and I think we can all agree that the purpose of learning is both to deliver personal fulfilment, through the acquisition of understanding and competencies, and to fulfil a social purpose by providing for economic needs. John Ruskin said:

“The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.”

Apprenticeships embody—indeed, they epitomise—that purpose. A trainee learns from a mentor a skill that has use in a workplace.

The value of apprenticeships is why, when I was shadow Minister for universities, further education and skills, and subsequently the Minister in 2010, I set about revitalising the apprenticeships system. I knew that apprenticeships were well understood by employers, were widely recognised by the public and could be attractive to trainees.

I will make a point on adult learning, provoked by the excellent contribution by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). It is vitally important to understand that in order to skill our workforce and provide it with the necessary competencies to meet the Government’s economic ambitions, we really do have to reskill existing workers as well as making practical and vocational education attractive to new entrants to the workplace. Simply as a matter of numbers, if we train more young people but do not retrain the existing workforce, we will never deliver the capacity needed to fill the skills gaps and deal with the skills shortages that, as has been said repeatedly, inhibit our ability to drive the economy forward.

The Bill is about the management and maintenance of standards of apprenticeships. I understood why that mattered so much, which is why I set about elevating the practical, the vocational and the technical. I believe that practical, vocational and technical learning is as important as academic accomplishment. It has been a myth perpetuated by the establishment—I am inclined to say “the liberal establishment,” but I do not want to damn the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire,  having praised him so nicely—that the only form of prowess that counts comes through academic learning. That myth has been so pervasive that a former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, set out the extraordinary, bizarre ambition that 50% of people should go to university.

The number of people who go to university should be about their tastes, talents, aptitudes and abilities. We should not set a target and then shoehorn people into a system in order to meet it; we should allow a system to reflect those aptitudes, tastes and talents. Many people’s abilities rightly lead them not to an academic education but to a practical one, yet we have underpowered and undervalued practical learning for so long in this country, and we continue to do so.

Deep at the heart of that fault has been the careers service. As hon. Members have mentioned, the careers advice and guidance that people have got has guided them—even when it did not suit them—into an academic route that has ill-served them. Even though it has landed them with immense debts, it has rendered them unable to get the job that would allow them to pay off those debts readily. So it is really important that we look again at that advice and guidance.

As I have mentioned, when I was the Minister I created a statutory duty on schools to offer independent advice and guidance, but I should have insisted that it was to be given face to face, with a careers adviser visiting a careers fair or holding personal interviews with students to set out the various options available. Unfortunately, teachers, who have typically been to university themselves, know that route well, and they are inclined to say to young people, “Why don’t you do what I did, and follow the route that I took?” They are often less well informed about the practical and vocational routes that would lead people to acquire the kinds of skills that, as we have all said, are vitally important.

I should, at the outset of my remarks, have referred Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I am associated with universities. Indeed, I ought also to say that my background is entirely academic. I studied at two universities, Nottingham and Cambridge, and I have taught in two as well, so I do not really have any practical skills myself, unlike my dear father, who could turn his hand to almost anything—there was nothing he could not do, practically. I have to send out for a man in the village if I want anything done. So my case is not born of any personal prejudice. Indeed, maybe it is born of a certain envy of those that can make and do things in the way that Ruskin described. \p Sureena Brackenridge: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? \p John Hayes: I will happily give way. The hon. Lady is now going to test me on my practical incompetence. \p Sureena Brackenridge: I have a couple of points to make. Does the right hon. Member acknowledge the important role that universities play in supporting technical advanced education? Does he also agree that, under the stewardship of the last Government, we saw a decimation of specialist careers guidance in schools? \p John Hayes: Yes, of course I acknowledge that role. It is important to point out that many of the universities do great work. I would not want to disparage that work, and the hon. Lady is right to draw the House’s attention to it.

The point I was really making is that, sadly, many people are driven down a pathway that is just not right for them. That is because of the underestimation of the significance of practical accomplishment, both at an intellectual level—the unwillingness to recognise that practical accomplishment is of a high order—and at a practical level in terms of the advice that people are often given and may later regret. It is not easy for a young person to know quite what path to take, and if the advice they get skews them towards one route or another, it is fairly likely that they will be ill equipped to make a considered judgment. I am simply making the argument for, at the very least, a degree of equality about the advice we give to people.

This Bill is questionable in a number of respects, and in particular, as has been highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and others, in the way that it presents the future management and control of apprenticeships and the standards associated with them. It is right that employers play a key role in that process, but the Bill is silent on the role of employers.

I am not an unbridled admirer of the Institute for Apprenticeships. I did not create it. In my time as Minister, and indeed as shadow Minister, the standards were guaranteed by sector skills councils. I would have gone for a sector-based approach myself. Had I stayed in office, I would probably have developed that further and emulated the German approach by establishing guilds. I began to lay some of the foundations for that as Minister, and I would have gone for such an approach rather than where we ended up. Having said that, what is critical about either that kind of sectoral approach or the apprenticeship institute being abolished by the Bill is the role of employers in ensuring that what is taught and tested meets a real economic need. We cannot detach that economic need from the structure by which we guarantee the quality of apprenticeships.

So, there is the issue of quality, and again the Bill is unconvincing in that respect. My right hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that if quality is lowered, the numbers can be increased. Indeed, the Labour Government prior to 2010 introduced programme-led apprenticeships, which were taught entirely outside of the workplace. They were still called apprenticeships but were unrelated to any particular employer or sector. That is not the way forward, and any diminution of standards will further undermine the status of practical learning. I simply say to the Minister that if the Secretary of State is going to take back control—to borrow a popular phrase—it is vital that simultaneously we hear more during the passage of the legislation about how standards will be maintained, because at the moment we have few assurances to that effect.

I will say a word on numbers, partly to advertise my own effectiveness in government. When I became the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, I was able, due to the promotion of apprenticeships, to drive their number to the highest level in modern times. I became the Minister in 2010. By 2011/12, we achieved 521,000 apprenticeships. That has never been equalled since, and we are now down to about 340,000. To say a word about previous Labour Governments, I inherited 280,000 apprenticeships, and the average number of apprenticeship completions from 2000 to 2009-10 was less than 100,000 a year.

As we debate these matters going forward, it is vital that the Government commit to the apprenticeship as a key determiner of their skills policy. The number of apprenticeships and their quality will allow the Government to drive up skills levels and, therefore, to meet economic need. \p Andrew Pakes: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? \p John Hayes: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has been listening attentively to my speech so far. \p Andrew Pakes: I am worried that I might damn the right hon. Gentleman with faint praise because when he cited the numbers from when he was the Minister, one of the determinants of his success was the involvement of trade unions in the sector skills council and the partnership. While we have talked lots about employers, he was an advocate in his party of involving trade unions. Unfortunately, Ministers after him excluded trade unions from that involvement. Is he advocating that trade unions should be involved in the new system? \p John Hayes: I am immensely flattered that the hon. Gentleman has followed my career with such assiduity. He is right: I defended Unionlearn and would continue to do so. Trade unions can play a vital part in ensuring the outcomes that the Government say that they seek and that I certainly believe in. Indeed, I went on a delegation to Germany—this is a minor digression, Madam Deputy Speaker—to look at their apprenticeship system with employers and trade unions, because I know that the combination of trade unions and employers was critical to driving the skills agenda. Again, it would be useful to hear from the Government what they think about that. How will they engage with the trade unions? Because trade unions are not mentioned in the Bill at all, we are left to wonder what will happen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said in his excellent speech, when the Secretary of State seizes control of apprenticeships from the current structure.

There are a number of other questions to be put. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) made a very good point about SMEs. One challenge when I was a Minister, and for subsequent Ministers and this Government, was in engaging more SMEs. I am not sure that we were successful in that. I launched a review of how we might do that; it was typically by making the system regulatory and trying to review some of the paperwork. Again, as the Bill moves forward, what more will we hear about how to engage more SMEs? If we say to someone in my constituency that there are really good engineering apprenticeships in Derby, which I am told is in the same part of the country—or in the same region at least, whatever that means—we might as well be saying that there are apprenticeships on Mars, because they will not be able to get to Derby to study. We really need the spread of apprenticeship accessibility, which SME involvement provides. It is the only way of creating the reach that is necessary to engage more young people and adult learners in acquiring those skills.

I have one or two further questions, with which I hope the Minister can deal. I have already spoken about employers. On the status of the new body, is it the Government’s intention, as the Secretary of State implied—  but no more than that—for it to become a non-departmental body in the end, or will it always be an in-house body? Anyone who has been close to government will know the significance of those two options. It needs at the very least to be a non-departmental body if it is to have the necessary freedom and independence to respond to employer need and changing economic circumstances. The Secretary of State hinted that that might be the direction of travel, but we do need to know more when the Minister sums up. \p Luke Murphy: Conservative Members are making quite the noise about IfATE’s independence, but I remind the House that this is a precedented move. The Conservative Government established the Standards and Testing Agency, which is currently the Executive agency and was formerly a non-departmental body. That is exactly the same status as IfATE, which performed very similar functions for many other kinds of qualifications and tests. Why was it okay for the right hon. Gentleman’s Government to do that in 2011? It seems that the Conservatives are more focused on the process point—a process similar to that undertaken by their Government—and not on the outcomes that will deliver for working-class kids interested in learning a trade. \p John Hayes: As I say, I am not an unbridled advocate of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which the Bill abolishes. I did not set it up during my stewardship. As I have already described, I would have preferred a different, guild-based model. Guilds would, by their nature, have been independent from Government. If we look at the German model, the guilds are sovereign, and they are closely tied, by the way, to the trade unions of the particular sectors for which they are responsible. I am simply saying to the Government, “Here is the chance to do something better.” One learns from experience and one learns from government experience, to be honest and straightforward about that.

Certainly, there is the issue of standards. How will standards be determined and delivered? Will that be done by an independent body or a series of independent bodies, perhaps in different parts of the business community, or will it be done directly by the Department? What about the figures in the impact assessment, which says that there would be a reduction in the number of apprenticeships? We are already at a pretty pitifully low level. As I described earlier, the number of apprenticeship starts in 2023-34 stood at 340,000. We can do much better than that, but the Government have certainly suggested in their impact assessment that they expect that number to fall, at least in the interim. By how much do we expect it to fall—5%, 10%, or 25%? We really need to know a little more about that.

The Secretary of State spoke about, as the Labour manifesto detailed, work with the Migration Advisory Committee and others. Can we hear a little more about the detail of that? Certainly, it will be required before we vote on Third Reading, because it is inconceivable that the Government would not want to be more straightforward about how those structural links will work and what role those other bodies will play in helping the Government to deliver their objectives.

Practical accomplishment is something dear to my heart. William Morris—rarely quoted in this House except by me, which is a sad indictment of the modern Labour party—said:

“a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body.”

Morris understood what I know many, from their contributions to this debate, understand too: that it is time to again elevate the practical. This is, of course, about our ambitions for the economy, but it is also about the people who acquire those skills—the way their lives are changed because their life chances are changed.

I started by speaking about John Ruskin and his view of these things. Ruskin said:

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

Yes, this is about the economy, but it is also about the difference we make to individuals who, through gaining new skills, grow and develop and become proud of what they can do for themselves, their family, their community and their nation. \p Several hon. Members: rose— \p Caroline Nokes: I had not been planning to introduce a formal time limit, but Members might reflect on how many are still standing and perhaps restrain themselves to five minutes or so. \p Darren Paffey: In rising to support the Bill, I want to say, without heaping too much praise on the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), that it is a pleasure to follow him and many of the comments he made. Like him, I have arrived at this place through the academic route, and perhaps precisely because of that, I, like him, am incredibly aware of the value of the vocational, practical and apprenticeship route. It is in that value that the power of what the Bill is seeking to achieve lies, and I hope to return to that point. I thank the Secretary of State, who is no longer in her place, for bringing forward the Bill, because seven months ago this country voted for change, and what we see today is another building block of that very necessary change.

On a recent visit to Southampton college’s marine skills centre in my constituency for National Apprenticeship Week last week, when it seems we were all busy making visits, I met some apprentices learning a whole range of skills, from engineering to electronics, to carpentry and yacht making. It was truly impressive, mostly because I would be entirely useless at all those skills. It reminded me that investing in apprenticeships is one of the most effective ways that we can equip the next generation with the skills they need. I am pleased to see that, with this Bill, the Government are taking action to ensure we get the right framework in place to shape our apprenticeship system. What apprentices want and what employers need is a system that offers routes into those meaningful, secure jobs, full of the dignity of work, that will bring them success as well as grow the economy.

I am not particularly obsessive about the structure of things or the way in which Government Departments organise themselves to implement policy. Like most people, I want what works, and I want what works best. The truth is that what we have at the moment, however  much Opposition Members try to dress it up, is simply not working for too many people. I am pleased that the focus of the Bill is on how we create an agency that will reduce the number of hoops to jump through and will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) said, focus on outcomes, what happens at the end of these training courses, and opportunities. \p Damian Hinds: Which hoops is the hon. Gentleman looking forward to the removal of? \p Darren Paffey: I think the best people to answer that would be the employers who, time and again, have been telling us—and, I am pretty sure, telling the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—about the pure bureaucracy and complexity of the system that has been set up. They are the best advocates of the need for change. By setting up Skills England we can give apprenticeships the flexibility and durability that we need, and that those training will need. Importantly, we can take the interests of employers and young people into account.

If the years since 2010 have taught us anything, it is that poor policy has consequences. Sadly, the IfATE structure set up by the previous Tory Government has failed to deliver and, alongside a lack of investment, that has left the UK with stubbornly high numbers of vacancies due to skills shortages and too many young people who are not in education, employment or training. I would welcome reflections from the Minister on how, at the same time as setting out the new framework and strategy for skills development, we can deal specifically with those not in education, employment or training, and whether a strategy specifically on that would be another jigsaw piece in resolving this picture.

Employers in Southampton Itchen are crying out for new trainees and employees, especially those with crucial, basic digital skills, but even today in this country about 7.5 million working-age adults lack those skills. Is that the golden Tory legacy that we keep being reminded of by Members on the Opposition Benches? All of that is changing with the structures that the Bill sets up, paving the way for Skills England. That will meet the skills challenges of today and empower all training providers and employers, including the excellent Kiwi Education and the South Coast Institute of Technology, to drive maritime, engineering, hospitality and digital opportunities in and around Southampton. It will also ensure that we reset the prestige of apprentices and the apprenticeship route, and elevate them once again to a place of real value.

I associate myself with comments from Members on both sides of the Chamber about the value of apprenticeship skills. I say that as someone who has paid my bills by being a university lecturer for a number for years, yet throughout my time in politics I have championed apprenticeship routes. A piece of paper at the end of something is pretty incidental, to be frank, because its real power is what it empowers someone to do and which doors it opens up. To return to the point made by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, it is about what skills enable someone to be, and what they become through those skills. That is where the real value and prestige of apprenticeships lies, and that is why we are resetting the value of them.

If we want growth and a well-trained workforce, the Bill is a route to delivering that. With this Bill, and with action that I know Ministers will be taking in future,  this Labour Government are widening options and breaking down barriers to opportunity for people in Southampton and beyond. That is why I will be proud to walk through the Lobby and vote for the Bill later today. \p Leigh Ingham: The Bill is a crucial first step in the reform of the Government’s skills system. This Government are changing the narrative around skills. When I was younger, apprenticeships were often seen as something for working-class kids and a route into traditional trades such as plumbing, bricklaying—like my dad—hairdressing or being an electrician. Although those trades remain vital—indeed, our ambitious house building targets rely on them—skills today can be about so much more. They are the foundations of our economy, our technological progress and our ability to compete on the global stage.

The Bill underpins the Government’s aim for apprenticeships not to be just for 18-year-olds fresh out of college. In my constituency of Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, many apprentices are over the age of 25. In fact, the majority of apprenticeships being taken up are advanced qualifications. Those people know what they want to do, may already have years of experience and are looking to upskill, retrain and take their career to the next level. We need exactly that kind of dynamic, lifelong learning.

We cannot just talk about improving skills—we need real, structural reforms to make that happen. That is why the Bill is so important. In October last year, the Government carried out a detailed impact assessment, looking at how it will affect learners, training providers, businesses and staff. The conclusion was clear: the Bill is essential to deliver the manifesto commitment to establish Skills England on which I and many of my hon. Friends stood.

We cannot continue to make the same mistakes made by last Government by keeping the fragmented approach of a slow, inefficient skills system. We do not have time for that. We need a joined-up approach that delivers for people who are trying to build their future, and for employers who are trying to build their business. For that reason, I was concerned about amendment 15 tabled to clause 11 in the other place, which introduced a one-year delay between the establishment of Skills England and the commencement of the Bill. I worry that that will delay the establishment of Skills England, and negatively impact employers, learners and the economy. I hope that the Government can minimise the impact of that amendment in Committee.

Hon. Members will often hear me champion Newcastle and Stafford college, based in my constituency, one of a small number of colleges nationally to twice achieve an Ofsted outstanding rating in all areas, including apprenticeships. It was recently praised for its “strong contribution” to meeting local skills needs, which is incredibly impactful on our local economy. The Bill will only help to increase that impact.

More widely, Skills England will work hand in hand with industry, employees and training providers to ensure we are not just reacting to skills shortages, but proactively identifying them. For too long, we have had a sticking-plaster approach to skills—and, let us be honest, to  everything else—but that must change. We need to be strategic, focused and ambitious in developing a workforce who are prepared for the future. The Bill recognises those needs and confirms the manifesto commitment that I proudly stood on. I am delighted to see it progress, so that people in Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages can better access training and, ultimately, better jobs. I urge all colleagues to vote for the Bill. \p Lee Pitcher: I and all my hon. Friends were elected last year on a simple promise: change. It was a promise to rebuild our country, economy, health service and infrastructure, and to lay the foundations for a brighter future where we will overcome the challenges of climate change, see the benefits of a green economy and lead the world in new technology. It will be a future of prosperity and opportunity for all. All of that—every mission the Government have set out—depends on a skilled workforce.

I have recently seen the diversity of apprenticeships in my local area, from the National Horseracing College in Rossington, to the SSE business in Keadby, to Jack who cuts my hair, who I am sure hon. Members will agree is supremely talented—a phenomenon. I just ruined his career, I think—sorry, Jack! Everything this Government have promised can be created only by having the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time.

Whether they are in the NHS, energy, house building or security, apprenticeships have been part of the fabric of British society for hundreds of years. They have made us the country that we are today. In the past, modern apprenticeships were met with great enthusiasm by both leaders and businesses. They represented a different way of learning and had great promise, but in recent years that promise has been unfulfilled. Both apprenticeship starts and, crucially, apprenticeship completions have fallen off dramatically. The current system is not working for learners, employers or our country.

We need a targeted and strategic system that works for everyone. The system must work with local leaders and businesses to be relevant to the skills gaps that are holding our economy back. We need partnership, but most importantly we need a system that inspires and empowers our teens and young people.

Both before and since becoming an MP, I have had the privilege to meet many of the young people in schools in my constituency. Their talent and ambition are outstanding. So many of them are raring to change the world to tackle the climate crisis, harness artificial intelligence and be part of a brighter future. All they need is the opportunity to succeed, and they will make us proud. That is what the Government have promised, and the establishment and progression of Skills England is at the heart of that promise.

Creating Skills England was one of this Government’s first acts, and it is already doing important work. This Bill is an important step towards fully empowering Skills England, reshaping the skills landscape and getting our economy growing. This Government’s No. 1 priority is growth and to get the economy working again not just in some places and for some people, but everywhere  for everyone—for north and south, urban and rural and all backgrounds and abilities. The fragmented approach we have seen over the last decade has never been so evident in the lack of pipeline for skills that we need right now and in the future.

Skills and apprenticeships must be at the heart of that strategy. Too many industries are held back from their potential because of the skills shortages we see. So many of the challenges that this country faces are rooted in the skills gap. Our housing crisis is built on a huge deficit in skilled construction workers, our hospitals and care homes cannot get the staff they need to do much more than hold together a system on the verge of collapse, and our economic productivity crisis is rooted in far too many people who miss out on the opportunity to fulfil their potential, so they neither thrive themselves nor contribute to our thriving economy.

I have spent my life working with water and the land. Blue-green infrastructure is absolutely vital, and new, smarter ways to work with nature are developing constantly. As we transition to net zero and sustainable development and growth and develop green energy solutions, we open up a whole sector of future jobs. In the coming decades, jobs and the blue-green economy will be as important as factories and coal mines were in the industrial revolution. We must embrace that opportunity now and use Skills England and the apprenticeship system to get our people ready for jobs in an industry in which we lead the world once again.

Britain has never had the biggest population, the most land or the greatest supply of natural resources, but we have been able to lead the world for centuries because of the skill of British people. We lead through technology, innovation and craftsmanship and through our wonderful natural talent. Britain sparked the industrial revolution and became the workshop of the world because of the skill of its workers, and that is why I am really happy to support this Bill. \p Tom Collins: I am pleased to see that we have some young people observing us today. Before coming to this place, I worked in research and development, leading a team of talented young engineers who were creating and realising new technologies to tackle the climate crisis. Some of those team members were apprentices, and some had been apprentices earlier in their careers. We faced many challenges, not least from a regulatory environment that struggled to move quickly in innovation and in finding relevant qualifications for new and emerging fields. Some of those challenges are inherent in doing something for the first time, but they were also the result of a UK engineering and industrial sector that had been neglected and, in some places, allowed to stagnate by political leaders who simply did not get it.

I am pleased that this new Government have embraced the values of purposeful, mission-led goal setting alongside agility, partnership and a willingness to act and learn fast. Just like our regulatory environment, our education ecosystem, which delivers skills and qualifications, needs to become more agile and responsive, and this Bill is an early step in that transformation and in reviving the symbiosis of academia and industry in our nations.

Anyone who works in engineering knows that there is no employee quite like an apprentice. Apprentices embody some of the most valuable skills needed in the workplace, such as social competencies that fuel teamwork, empathy, excellent communication, shared purpose, critical thinking and problem-solving skills built on perseverance, experimentation and pragmatism and a can-do attitude backed by hard skills honed in the real world. I have had numerous meetings with our local colleges in Worcester, and they are champing at the bit to deliver the technical and vocational skills needed for the big transformations that our country faces in digital, clean energy and public services. They welcome our changes to reduce bureaucracy and lift demotivating and burdensome requirements for English and maths GCSEs, as well as the changes that we are beginning to make regarding shorter placements and funding bands. They want us to keep going; I have been asked whether we could look at industry-specific flexibility around English and maths for 16 to 18-year-olds, with requirements integrated into standards. I have also been asked about further reviews of apprenticeship standards and funding bands in a wider range of areas, such as hospitality and customer service, and they would like us to keep building on our partnership with the sector, providing clarity about future levy changes and level 7 so that they can plan more effectively.

I am pleased that this Government are making changes that provide the agility and freedom to act quickly and responsively. Innovations in our economy will be founded on innovations in our ecosystem of education and skills. We can see a creative, industrial and innovative renaissance in the UK, and I believe that apprentices will be in the thick of it, delivering the true power of a thriving economy: skills and passionate people. As such, I urge the Secretary of State and our Ministers in the Department for Education to continue this work at pace, and I would like to express the appetite and ambition that is present in Worcester to play our part in delivering the technical and vocational skills of tomorrow through apprenticeships. The people of Worcester are ready to back the Secretary of State’s mission and work in partnership with the Government to break down the barriers to opportunity and see our country—and every single person who makes it—thrive. \p Andrew Pakes: It is an honour to follow such a passionate speech about apprenticeships from my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins). I was going to thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for raising John Ruskin and William Morris in the Chamber—I certainly think they should be mentioned more often—but I will amend my comments to say that it would be nice to have some Opposition Members in the Chamber for this important debate. \p Laura Trott: Hey! \p Andrew Pakes: It is nice to have some—to have some more would be quite good.

Whereas we have had William Morris and John Ruskin, some colleagues seem to have been getting speechwriting advice from Lewis Carroll, because some of the speeches from Opposition Members have been through the looking glass in their description of the problems and what is happening. We are lost in a debate where people are  stuck on the function of a body, rather than the purpose we are trying to achieve, which is to change and enhance people’s lives.

Before I continue, I must declare my interest. Alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are my passion in this House and in life, so I certainly believe that the transfer of functions and assets from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to the new Skills England body is an overwhelmingly positive move. It was a proposal made in our manifesto—another promise made and kept by this Government.

The rationale underpinning this Bill is simple enough: the scope of the institute was too limited, and it is letting too many people down. Vitally, Skills England will work with young workers on their learning journey, signposting them through the maze of qualifications and apprenticeship opportunities. More than that, it will identify the skills gaps in our economy and work with the Industrial Strategy Council and the Migration Advisory Committee to plug those gaps. This matters to me, because in Peterborough, we have some of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the country. Apprenticeship starts are down, and unemployment is up.

It is clear to me that the work of Skills England must be aligned with the new industrial strategy, something we heard too little about from Opposition Members in their discussions of this issue. It does not matter what structure we have if we do not have industrial purpose, which this Government will bring to our growth mission, but also to our mission to remove barriers and transform lives. We must have cross-departmental, cross-agency, joined-up working to deliver the skills revolution and take us out of the old silos. When the Minister replies to the debate, I encourage her to detail how the industrial strategy and new Skills England bodies will work together to create those transformational opportunities. I also invite her to talk about how the growth and skills levy will fit together with Skills England, enabling us to deliver on those ambitions.

Our No. 1 mission is economic growth, spread to every part of the UK and built on a diverse base of industries and services. That mission will be hamstrung unless we unleash a skills revolution. The first report of Skills England made that clear, and it shows the scale of the challenge. Employer investment in training has been in steady decline over the past decade, with training expenditure at its lowest level since records began in 2011. Investment per employee is down 19% in real terms. I know from talking to business leaders in my constituency that they find the qualifications landscape and the institute bewildering. They tell me that skills supply is often mismatched against demand and that there are insufficient ways to encourage employers to invest in skills. I know from talking to learners in my constituency that the journeys into careers are poorly signposted and often blocked. Learners too often lack the essential literacy, numeracy and digital skills they need prior to apprenticeships to get the jobs they need.

In short, we do not have the skilled workers to do the future jobs that will drive growth. This Bill goes a long way to addressing that by setting up the institution and the purpose to get us there. Apprenticeships are the golden thread that run through this Government’s ambitions   for growth. The new Skills England must recognise the centrality of apprenticeships to that and bring them centre stage into our economy.

As so many others in the Chamber have discussed today, the breadth, talent and determination of the apprentices I have met has been humbling, whether that is the butchers’ apprentices in Newborough, construction apprentices at Laing O’Rourke building a new Olympia or creative learners at the Fashion Retail Academy. Recently, I was delighted to welcome engineering apprentices from Caterpillar in my constituency to talk to us.

These apprenticeships will give young people a clearer route into careers where the nation has skills gaps. The new levy we are talking about will fund short apprenticeships, giving learners and employers greater flexibility. Overall, we must elevate the status of apprenticeships in our society and culture. I am not decrying our universities, but we must end the snobbery that says an apprenticeship is second-best to a degree. We must tackle the outmoded idea that learning and earning is a lesser option for young people. We do not hear that lazy trope in Sweden or Germany, and we should never hear it here in the UK. My third question to the Minister is: how will Skills England work through this legislation to elevate the role of apprenticeships in our society?

Skills and apprenticeships are not only the engine of growth, but the ladder of opportunity. The Minister will have seen the excellent briefings on this Bill from the Co-operative Group, of which I am a member, and one of its central challenges is that we should not just be creating more apprenticeships, but ensuring that Skills England has a responsibility to improve outcomes for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, including working-class kids in my constituency. That will ensure that the new body has social mobility baked into it from its inception. That will not only deliver better outcomes for those from working-class backgrounds, but will encourage Skills England to thoroughly measure the impact. When the Minister responds to the debate, will she talk about how we will measure the impact in cities such as mine, as well as the country as a whole?

This is a wonderful Bill, and I am pleased to support it. I am pleased to put on record my support to the ministerial team, particularly Baroness Smith of Malvern in the other House, who has been kind with her time and brilliant with this Bill. \p Josh Dean: My driving focus as the MP for Hertford and Stortford is to make our community an even better place to live, work and learn. I am delighted to speak in this debate today, and I have no doubt that the Bill will allow us to harness the talents of our young people through ambitious skills reform that will drive growth and unlock opportunity.

Our young people in Hertford and Stortford are keen to take advantage of these opportunities, and the confidence that apprenticeships instil in our young people cannot be overstated. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting the Hertford regional college’s Ware campus to mark National Apprenticeship Week. It was great to meet some of its talented hairdressing apprentices and hear how they are starting to fill jobs at small and  medium-sized businesses in our local area and to learn more about HRC’s apprenticeship offer for my constituents.

In our community, we can see how apprenticeships are helping young people to find the path that is right for them, develop skills for life and drive the local economy, but for too long, those opportunities have been out of reach for too many young people in our area, leaving those for whom traditional education does not work, who want to pursue an apprenticeship or another form of education, to slip through the cracks. Apprenticeship starts crashed under the watch of the previous Government. A broken apprenticeships levy let down businesses and young people alike, and both are now crying out for change.

I am pleased that this Government will introduce a new growth and skills levy, enabling employers to access a broader range of higher quality training offers, providing them with more flexibility and helping learners to access opportunities that will improve their lives.

The Department for Education’s employer skills survey showed that about 36% of all UK vacancies in 2022 were skills shortage vacancies—a huge increase from 22% in 2017, and a clear indicator of the damage done to the economy by the lack of a strong skills offer. This Labour Government will tackle the critical skills shortages that have hamstrung our economy, and apprenticeships will power this mission-driven Government and our Plan for Change.

We know that the skills needed for economic growth come from the community up. The Bill will pave the way for Skills England to find and fill skills gaps, ensuring that our skills and apprenticeship offer can harness the talent of young people in communities such as mine and deliver the growth that our country needs. It will allow us to build a skills system that empowers our young people, caters to their diverse talents, and once again restores skills as a national priority. Most important, it will provide the tools for young people in Hertford and Stortford to break down the barriers to opportunity, find the path that is right for them, and reach their full potential. I will proudly vote for it this evening. \p Dan Aldridge: The Bill constitutes a significant step towards streamlining and strengthening our technical education and apprenticeship system, and, as someone who worked in the apprenticeships sector in different roles, I am a big fan. So many of us have seen at first hand how apprenticeships transform lives—how they build dignity in young people’s work, and help them to establish fulfilling careers. Joy at all this unlocked potential has, however, been continually frustrated by the decline in apprenticeships that we have seen over the past decade. This decline must be reversed, and that, surely, is an aim that can unite the House. It is what this Bill is about: delivering the step change in skills that we so desperately need if we are to rebuild our communities and our country.

My constituents must be able to earn, learn and thrive because of what we do in this place, not in spite of it. In towns such as Weston-super-Mare and Worle, technical education and apprenticeships are fundamental to enterprise, prosperity and economic independence for our young people. Sadly, however, towns like mine  have never been able to take full advantage of those benefits, because of red tape and because of the hoops that providers and small and medium-sized enterprises have had to jump through. For too long we have seen a fragmented technical education system plagued by that red tape and by inefficiencies.

Given the huge responsibility and expectation on this Government to deliver significantly improved life chances for communities, we must break down barriers and blocks to progress everywhere, and we must be bold in the way in which we restructure the state to make it deliver. Our employers, our training providers and, most important, our apprentices deserve a system that is responsive, transparent, and aligned with the needs of our economy and our society. The young people of Weston-super-Mare are bursting with potential and ambition, but they have often been let down by needless bureaucracy and a lack of the right opportunities and resources—and the right information, advice and guidance—to enable them to develop the skills that are needed by today’s employers. Communities like mine have been left behind by successive skills strategies that have overlooked the nuances in our local economies, especially when it comes to supporting the needs of the SMEs that provide the overwhelming majority of private sector employment in towns such as mine—whether we are talking about Weston-super-Mare association football club, the Ascot Group or our beloved grand pier.

This Bill removes bureaucracy, and will make the system work better. It allows the Secretary of State to act swiftly when necessary, to respond to industry’s needs and to deliver the flexibility that is crucial in a job market where skills requirements are constantly evolving and moving on at an unprecedented pace. If we are serious about providing high-quality technical education, closing the skills gap and developing our workforce, we must structure our institutions to achieve those goals. We must also ensure that towns up and down the country that sit outside cities and, currently, outside combined authority areas—such as Weston-super-Mare—are fully considered, are not left behind in any reforms of skills and apprenticeships, and have a seat at the table when it comes to skills and growth plans. The Bill is a huge step in the right direction, and I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the House to support it. \p Luke Murphy: For too long, our skills system has not delivered due to policies that simply have not worked. Businesses have struggled to recruit the skilled workers they need, young people do not have the opportunities they deserve and investment in training has gone backwards. The previous Government talked a good game and introduced measures such as the apprenticeship levy with big promises, but in reality their approach was slow, bureaucratic and failed to deliver.

It is worth noting, as I said in my interventions on Conservative Members, that I feel their criticism of the Bill today has focused far too much on structures, not outcomes, but since they have done that, I think it is worth reiterating this point. The Standards and Testing Agency sets the statutory assessments for school pupils, and it develops professional skills tests for trainee teachers. It is an Executive agency, just as Skills England will be, and it was formally a non-departmental public body,  just as IfATE was. However, the Standards and Testing Agency was set up in October 2011, so I am not sure that criticisms of structures actually hold any merit; rather, they are a distraction from the record of the Conservative party. On its watch, investment in skills fell and apprenticeship starts dropped. Critical sectors are still facing chronic skills shortages, and employers up and down the country have been left navigating a system that just does not work for them. That is why this Bill is so important. It is about fixing what is broken and making sure that our skills system actually works for workers, businesses and the wider economy.

To celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, I visited Basingstoke College of Technology to talk to its current class of carpentry and joinery apprentices, and to speak to college leaders. It was a particular privilege for me because my dad was a carpenter. He left school at 15 with no qualifications, but in the trade that he learned on the job he had skill and pride in his craft. He did not have the opportunity that many young people I met last week in Basingstoke have, with the fantastic support structures around apprentices today and more that we are going to build, as well as all the brilliant ways in which apprenticeships can help turbocharge the careers of so many talented and skilled young people.

One thing that was made very clear to me from my visit to BCOT alone is that it is massively oversubscribed for many of the apprenticeships it offers. That worries me, because it shows that too many young people are not getting access to the resources they need to learn a trade and are being left behind by more than a decade of failure to deliver. So I am pleased that this Government, through this Bill, are working harder and faster—with their very first education Bill to be introduced—to cut red tape and give people greater opportunities to start apprenticeships.

With 1,250 apprentices currently training in Basingstoke, 310 just starting and 110 having just completed their courses, the Labour Government are already making progress, but there is much more to do. I want Basingstoke to be the best place for someone to learn a trade, start a career and build a life for themselves, and I believe this Bill will help to deliver just that, laying the groundwork to establish Skills England and taking a step towards a more joined-up and responsive approach.

Skills England will replace the current fragmented system with one that properly assesses national and regional skills needs, which will be absolutely crucial if we are to meet the challenges of the future. That will ensure we are training people for the jobs that actually exist in the places where they are actually needed. This is not just about cutting red tape; it is about making sure that our approach to apprenticeships and technical education is fit for the modern economy. For years, the system has been tied up in rigid, outdated rules that make it harder to respond to the fast-changing needs of industries such as digital, green energy and advanced manufacturing. The changes in this Bill will allow for a more flexible, forward-thinking approach that actually meets the needs of employers and workers alike. A big part of that is replacing the old apprenticeship levy, which has been too restrictive, with a new growth and skills levy, which will give employers the freedom to invest in a wider range of training opportunities.

As other Members have said, we must put an end to the snobbery around skills and apprenticeships. For too long, highly skilled and essential trades have not been given the recognition they deserve. Too often they have been seen as somehow less valuable than the careers that require a university degree, despite being just as vital, just as skilled and just as valuable to our economy and society. I am proud that this Government are changing that narrative. We need these skills to drive growth, build the homes and infrastructure that we need and deliver energy security. We have the opportunity here to fix the mistakes of the past and to build something better. I urge colleagues to support the Bill, because a strong skills system is not just good for business and the economy, but good for everyone. \p Toby Perkins: As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), I welcome the Government’s focus on this crucial aspect of skills policy. They have inherited a wildly diverse and dysfunctional skills landscape. I would not go so far as to describe what we have as a skills system, which would seem to suggest something far more considered and structured than what currently exists. This Bill is the Government’s first very small legislative step towards addressing the skills crisis that is one of our nation’s biggest barriers to growth and productivity.

It is almost impossible to have a meeting with an employer—private or public sector—without the issue of the UK’s skills deficit arising. Apprenticeships are a crucial but criminally underutilised dimension of providing Britain’s learners with an opportunity to earn while they learn, and provide our employers with skilled and qualified workers who contribute in the workplace as they develop the skills they will need. Indeed, the Government’s ambitious aspirations for growth will remain purely aspirations if the current failure in our skills approach is not rectified.

The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) suggested that the previous Conservative Government’s record on apprenticeships was world class, but I beg to differ. In discussing apprenticeships, it is worth first identifying what is wrong with the current system before considering the extent to which the Bill moves us towards resolution of those issues.

First, it is estimated that around £480 million will be left unspent in the major employers’ apprenticeship levy pot this year. FE News reported in February 2024 that SME apprenticeship starts had fallen by 49% since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, with the cost, rigidity and bureaucracy of the current system all cited as reasons why SMEs do not take on apprentices. Level 2 and 3 apprenticeships, in particular, have suffered, with a 53% reduction since the introduction of the levy, while a growing portion of the levy pot is being spent on degree-level courses.

Degree-level apprenticeships should be a huge social mobility tool, with learners from poorer backgrounds who might be dissuaded from attending university relishing the opportunity to secure a degree while working and without accruing debt. However, recent research has  shown, shockingly, that degree apprenticeships are being swept up by the wealthier students, with free school meals pupils less likely to get a degree apprenticeship than to get a place at Oxbridge.

Finally, the completion rate of apprenticeships is worryingly low, at just 54.3% of all students, compared with 97% of A-level students passing across all subjects. This is due to many causes; the Government have set about addressing one by removing the need to pass functional maths and English in order to complete an apprenticeship for under-19s. However, there also needs to be a much greater link between the completion of the apprenticeship and the fitness-to-practise requirements. Many learners do not complete the apprenticeship, but not because they have failed—they may well have secured the skills they needed to start work, and do not see the apprenticeship as being relevant once the job has been secured. There is, therefore, a great deal for the noble Baroness Smith, in the other place, to sink her teeth into.

This Bill is the Skills England Bill that dare not speak its name. By abolishing IfATE, it lays the groundwork for the creation of Skills England. There are important questions for the Government to answer, and I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister responds to the debate, she will be able to enlighten us on a number of them. First, is she concerned that Skills England will have the necessary weight and independence to bring about the scale of change that its own report acknowledged was necessary? What will the extended scope of Skills England be, beyond the identification of standards and the potential alternative use of the Government’s new growth and skills levy?

If the Minister is not clear about what shape Skills England will take post IfATE, is she concerned about abolishing IfATE without being clear on what will replace it and where the responsibility for those functions will fall? Can she say any more about how the voice of employers will be heard when the powers are centralised with the Secretary of State? There may be huge enthusiasm for the Secretary of State taking a more streamlined approach, on occasions, to the process of creating new standards, as IfATE is seen as too cumbersome. However, does she agree that that must be the exception rather than the rule? How will she ensure that employers’ voices are still heard? Can she also confirm that the powers to approve standards will indeed pass to Skills England once that has been created, and can she say any more about the role of Skills England with regard to the growth and skills levy?

I very much welcome Baroness Smith’s announcement about removing the need for passing maths and English for students who are over 19, but has the Minister done any assessment of the merits of that for students under the age of 19? I am interested in understanding the arguments in favour of that change for over 19s that do not apply to students who are under 19.

I hugely welcome the Government’s commitment to this area of policy and the positive initial steps. I suspect that it will not be news to my hon. Friend that I think that far greater systemic change is needed if we are to deliver the more transformational change that our employers, our learners and, indeed, our nation desperately need. \p Lauren Edwards: I do not support the amendment but will speak in favour of the Bill.

As many have highlighted, there is a gap between the skills needed by employers and the skills held by the UK workforce. Skills shortage vacancies have been on the rise year after year, and the latest data shows that a third of all vacancies are due to skills shortages. It is holding our country back and, therefore, the system needs to change. The immediate skills gaps need to be addressed urgently, but just as pressing is the need to have a single body that considers the skills that our businesses will need 10, 20 or 30 years from now, with 1.4 million new jobs predicted by 2035 alone. Many of those new jobs will need technical green skills, digital skills and understanding of artificial intelligence.

If our Government are to achieve the changes in this country that so many people voted for—more homes, green energy and economic growth that puts money back into people’s pockets—skills are the key ingredient. The importance of apprenticeships and technical qualifications to that mission cannot be underestimated. Indeed, I was immensely proud when the Prime Minister and the Education Secretary visited MidKent College in my constituency before the election to set out their ambition to put vocational education on the same footing as academic university education.

If Skills England is to achieve its aims and help us to meet the skills challenges our country faces, it must cover all areas. I therefore welcome the Bill, which folds IfATE into Skills England to enable that integrated approach to support our labour market and economy.

As others have mentioned, the Bill will make Skills England an Executive agency of the Department for Education. I am pleased that Ministers amended the Bill in the other place to require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament detailing the exercise of functions conferred on her by the Bill. I understand that will also make clear the functions that Skills England will take on and the expected effects of those functions. I likewise welcome the commitment to publishing details of the framework that will be used to hold Skills England to account for its delivery and its relationship with employers. The clarity those documents will provide is most welcome.

I will also take this opportunity briefly to welcome the reforms announced by the Government during National Apprenticeship Week. The apprenticeship levy under the former Government, well meaning though it was, was too cumbersome and restrictive for too many employers and learners. As a result, apprenticeship starts fell off a cliff, and the latest data on apprenticeship completion shows a rate of just 55% in England. I am therefore pleased that the Government have listened to employers and training providers and committed to making the new growth and skills levy, which will replace the apprenticeship levy, simpler, more flexible and employer-led. I note that Skills England will be tasked with carrying out analysis of the broader types of training that will be eligible under the new levy and I look forward to seeing the outcome of that work, which will be hugely beneficial to employers and apprentices.

A common issue with the current apprenticeship schemes in this country, as others have mentioned, is that it does not work for small and medium-sized  enterprises, which do not have large human resources departments to help navigate the often complex skills landscape. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my local authority area of Medway where 90% of all businesses are SMEs. Can the Minister set out how the Government will ensure that the voices of SMEs will be heard, so that we get an apprenticeship framework that works for all types of businesses? That is particularly important if we are to drive growth across all parts of the country. I know, for instance, that there are some larger businesses looking at how they can provide practical apprenticeship support to SMEs in their supply chain, so it would be good to know whether the Government are considering how they can best incentivise approaches such as this, which will help hugely by “de-risking” apprenticeships for SMEs.

Likewise, I know that there are some amazing smaller training providers. I have a fantastic women-led one in my constituency called Umbrella Training. It is equally important that these providers’ experiences and needs are reflected in the new apprenticeship system.

There are always risks associated with change; that is unavoidable. There is obviously some concern that the transfer of IfATE to Skills England may lead to a level of disruption, so it would be helpful if the Minister provided details of the main risks identified by her Department for the transition and how they will be managed and mitigated. Doing so would help to provide assurance to those currently undertaking apprenticeships and other technical qualifications, as well as to employers. It will be particularly important to ensure that the knowledge and expertise of staff at IfATE—no doubt built up over many years—is not lost during this process.

It will also be helpful for Skills England to set out a number of other issues in due course, such as what changes may be proposed to the local skills improvement plan framework, and assurance that local areas will be able to prioritise sectors or industries that are key to driving their local economy that may not feature in the Government’s industrial strategy, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) earlier in the debate. Anything further that the Minister can say on these points at this stage would be welcome.

Finally, clause 6 removes the requirement to review technical educational qualifications at regular intervals. Instead, the Secretary of State will have the flexibility to focus on reviews based on need. It would be helpful if, in her response, the Minister outlined what steps will be taken to ensure that the quality and relevance of qualifications is maintained under the new framework. \p Judith Cummins: Before I call the next speaker, may I gently remind Members that their speeches should be no longer than five minutes? \p Maya Ellis: Like many of my colleagues, I found that this year’s National Apprenticeship Week really brought to life the amazing work being done by businesses, organisations and students across my constituency. Listening to many of the comments from across the House about how we need to improve the culture and perception around technical education, I am minded to reflect on the experience that I had when I was in year 9 and getting quite high results in my electronics exams. I had an amazing teacher, Miss Robinson,  who asked me one day whether I would consider doing a BTEC in engineering. I did not end up following that technical route, but I do wonder what our productivity would be today if, back then, our culture had promoted it more prominently, particularly for people who were very academic.

I am really excited at the prospect of the Bill laying the groundwork for the new body, Skills England, to realise our ambitious missions for opportunity and growth. One of the best commitments in this Government’s manifesto was to link immigration and skills policy in an effort to tackle the UK’s reliance on international recruitment. Indeed, during the general election campaign, I was on a panel with fellow candidates in Lancashire and explained our commitment, and a fellow candidate standing for Reform remarked that he actually really liked that idea. I will be interested to see whether his colleagues agree today.

Skills England will work closely with the Migration Advisory Committee and Industrial Strategy Council to develop an evidence-based approach to the labour market, with the committee set to monitor sectors where skill shortages are leading to increases in overseas recruitment. Importantly, this will mean that there will be a focus on sectors reliant on overseas workers to ensure that they are addressing their failure to invest in skills in the UK. To support British workers as best we can, it is promising to hear that international recruitment will not be the standard choice for employers filling skill shortages. Although migration can play a strategic role in supporting our economy, it must not be utilised as a means to address skills or training shortages in the UK over supporting British workers here. In general, we are far too familiar with pressing skills gaps negatively affecting our economy. Some 20% of our UK workforce may be significantly under-skilled for their jobs by 2030, and 1.5 million jobs in England are at risk of at least some of their tasks being automated in future.

There are businesses and organisations leading the charge in tackling this. In my previous life away from this place, I was privileged to work alongside the Lancashire skills and employment hub and the Lancashire digital skills partnership, which have long been pioneers for developing our skills landscape in this country. I would like to put on record my thanks to Michele Lawty-Jones and Kerry Harrison, who lead those services, piloting programmes such as the skills bootcamps, which they made such a success of in Lancashire that the previous Government rolled them out nationally.

Their hard work also secured the Lancashire and Cumbria institute of technology, which I was delighted to visit last week at the Preston college base in my constituency. Its principal, Simon Nixon, and many students spoke to me about the technical training that they receive in health and social care, construction, counselling and engineering. Vitally, Preston college collaborates closely with industry experts and businesses to ensure that its curriculum is up to date and reflects the needs of the economy. It is working with around 950 employers who help design the curriculum, support assessments and offer mentoring and industry placements for its IoT students. A great example of that is its work with Leyland Trucks, which reported a need for electric vehicle training for its apprentices. The college embedded a new module into its institute of technology course.

A key need that Preston college meets is providing increased adult education opportunities. The upcoming devolution deal in Lancashire will undoubtedly allow organisations to have an increased say in adult education budgets, to boost local productivity and foster the right opportunities for the north-west. However, the college is concerned about the reported 2% to 3% reduction in adult skills budgets. For colleges that have little adult work or that have struggled to deliver against contract, that might be less of a problem, but Preston college gets around 20% of its income from adult provision and has been able to over-deliver for the past few years. Any reduction applied across the board would hit Preston college’s delivery, particularly in key areas such as construction and English for speakers of other languages, and is likely to add to cost pressures already felt.

Undoubtedly, we are under severe financial pressure at the moment, but we need to be careful that short-term savings do not impact the long-term skills development that we desperately need to lead us to a better financial outlook. I welcome the Minister’s comments on that. What really blew me away at Preston college was the feel of the place. It felt inspiring, modern and a place to really grow. I heard from students who had had negative experiences elsewhere but felt truly at home there. That is what Government investment can do for the wellbeing of areas in need of growth. That is the opportunity we have with this Bill.

BAE Systems is another business operating in my constituency that offers fantastic training and skills opportunities, particularly through apprenticeships. I was moved on a recent visit, on which I was delighted to be joined by the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith, by a young person who had tried a few times to get a role at BAE Systems. Because of the multitude of inclusive routes that BAE provides young people to end up on one of its apprenticeships, he eventually found a route that allowed his strengths and potential to shine, enabling him to secure a role.

I know from having worked in economic development in Lancashire that many local SMEs have benefited from BAE Systems over-training on its apprenticeship programmes, so that there is a supply of apprentices who can flow into the surrounding SME chain. As many Members have noted, a big challenge is how we encourage SMEs to support apprenticeships when they may need only one or two apprentices. The route that BAE went down came from targeted Government funding. I would welcome the Government’s considering something similar. BAE had the training infrastructure to provide the support much more efficiently than most SMEs would be able to do themselves. We should maximise our productivity in how we train people by making the most of the successful structures that we already have.

I am delighted that almost half of people starting apprenticeships in Ribble Valley in the past year were aged over 25, showing that people in my constituency are ambitious and committed to lifelong learning. I fully support the Bill and I cannot wait to see Skills England established, to support those looking to improve their skills by bringing about a more data-driven and joined-up skills system for all of us. \p Steve Yemm: It is often said that the UK is increasingly a knowledge economy; a place where our growth and jobs come both from trading  ideas and information as well as physical goods. This Government’s plan for growth clearly recognises that and plays to our strengths, which is why we are now the second most attractive country to invest in globally, according to a recent PWC report. However, it is vital that the benefits are felt equally across our country.

Areas with a proud industrial heritage like my constituency of Mansfield did not get the investment and training programmes they needed under previous Governments, and our young people have suffered the consequences of that. Many of them face an unenviable choice between staying trapped in unstable and low-quality employment or leaving their home towns to seek opportunity elsewhere in the country. My election in July was a resounding vote for change in Mansfield, and my first mission for the constituency was to fight for a growing economy with good-quality jobs for everyone. For that reason, I will be pleased to vote for the Bill, which is a major step of progress in the Government’s reform of the skills and apprenticeships system.

Apprenticeships are a critical component for high-quality jobs in Mansfield. On my visits to businesses around my constituency, I have been fortunate enough to see the great work already being done by some of our employers, working in partnership with West Notts college and Nottingham Trent University. That includes: local aerospace and nuclear electronics company Glenair, which recently took on 60 apprentices; Power Saving Solutions in Warsop; and Capita in Mansfield, which is doing particularly good work to support people with disabilities to access and sustain employment through apprenticeships. They are providing opportunities not just for school leavers but for those who are retraining and getting back into the world of work. We must not underestimate the importance of that for those individuals, the local economy or for productivity and growth nationally. We need to be doing more to encourage that type of opportunity in my constituency and across the country.

I therefore welcome the changes that we will vote on today. In particular, the transfer of powers from the old Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to the new Skills England body and the reform of the apprenticeship levy are two measures that will help bring together under one roof the patchwork of schemes and organisations that currently exists and result in a more flexible system that will give our local training pioneers the support they need.

Britain needs to begin the process of reskilling workers. I draw attention to the work that Nottingham Trent is doing with West Notts to encourage adult learners, facilitating direct entry into the renewables workforce, which is another great example. I expect the impacts to be transformative for Mansfield in the long term. For that reason, I end by inviting the Minister to visit my constituency, where she will be able to see for herself the start made in upskilling our young people and adults as well as how far these changes will go in delivering secure, fulfilling, well-paid employment.

Mansfield is a place with significant latent potential. I believe that a keen-eyed collaboration between local businesses, further and higher education and the Government will support our formerly neglected area to realise the potential that we have. \p Kirith Entwistle: Too many young people are being let down by a skills and training system that does not work for them. For too long, Britain has been a country where technical education has been treated as second class, skills shortages stifled success and talent went untapped. Let us be clear: the Conservatives’ legacy has failed our young people and they cannot keep using the pandemic as an excuse. Between October 2023 and September 2024, 41% of people aged 16 to 24 were economically inactive in the north-west; nationally, that number was 11.4%. I would be really interested to hear what Conservative Members have to say to young people in the north-west.

In the last two years, skills shortages have left more than a third of UK vacancies unfilled while the number of 16 to 24-year-olds looking for work has doubled. That is over 420,000 young people wanting to work and to contribute to our economy, but, without the right training, they cannot get those jobs that need filling—jobs that they could thrive in if we had the right skills system.

Our young people are not lazy. Rather, it is the system the Conservatives left behind that has failed them. Visiting businesses in Bolton, I know that employers are desperate for skilled workers and that they recognise skills training and apprenticeships as a way forward. The young apprentices I have met in Bolton are thriving. They have security, skills and a clear path ahead, and that confidence is transforming lives and livelihoods. That is why am proud that, through this Bill, this Labour Government are establishing Skills England. Skills are not second class; they are the backbone of Britain. Skills England will break barriers that have left entire regions such as mine behind.

In Bolton, have already seen what works. Bolton Lads and Girls Club, part of the outstanding youth charity OnSide, has achieved remarkable success with its On Track initiative. This programme provides one-to-one support for young people who are not in education, employment or training, offering practical help with CV building, interview preparation and visits to businesses. But more than that, it broadens their horizons, showing them the many promising alternatives to the traditional university route and pathways that may better suit their skills and ambitions.

I recently visited Bolton college during National Apprenticeship Week. Its apprenticeship programme is another shining example of how investment in skills transforms lives. From health and early years education to engineering, digital skills and low-carbon construction, Bolton college is equipping young people with the expertise that businesses urgently need. During my visit, it was clear that the apprenticeship levy’s rigid restrictions —allowing funds to cover training but not wages—were directly preventing businesses from hiring more apprentices, so I sincerely hope that Skills England will review the levy so that more young people can earn while they learn and employers can fill those critical skills gaps.

The successes of OnSide and Bolton college provide proof of what happens when we invest in skills and opportunities. Now we must take those lessons and scale them up nationally. This Bill and Skills England are not just about educational reform; they are an economic necessity and critical for growth, because Britain cannot build, grow or lead without a workforce that is skilled for the future.

But let us also be clear about what Skills England is not. It is not another quango, it is not more red tape, and it is not just another Government agency. Skills England is a promise to young people that their future does not have to follow a single path, a promise to businesses that they will have the workforce that they need to thrive, and a promise to this country that Britain’s best days are ahead, not behind us. We need more builders, engineers, coders, carers and welders—the people who power this country—and I am proud that this Labour Government are ending the snobbery around skills and finally putting apprenticeships on an equal footing with academia. I wholeheartedly support this Bill and the opportunities that Skills England will create for my constituents, not least young people. \p Amanda Martin: I have been proudly championing the very neglected skills and trades sector since arriving in this place because, unfortunately, one of the most toxic legacies of the previous Government is a crisis in education and training, with overwhelming barriers to opportunity for far too many young people and a real downplaying of practical vocational skills in the eyes not only of students but often of their parents and the wider community. This is in stark contrast to what we see across Europe, Australia and the USA.

Apprenticeships offer young people an alternative pathway to success and one that is not only vital for our communities but practical, hands-on and deeply connected to the industries that drive our economy. We must start by ensuring that we value all pathways and people if we are to move towards a productive, highly skilled population and achieve our growth targets. Vocational training is hugely important. However, in 2022, we had nearly 340,000 apprenticeship starts, compared with 520,000 11 years before that. Young people in my city of Portsmouth are not always able to access the well-paid jobs, despite there being many opportunities on our doorstep in the defence, maritime, space, science and trade sectors, to name a few.

We must improve and promote vocational pathways by increasing the number of apprenticeships available, improving apprenticeship completion rates, increasing financial support and increasing the flexibility of courses. This Bill establishing Skills England is the first step to achieving some of the much-need elevation of our skills sector.

Only a third of apprenticeships are completed. That is a shockingly low statistic, and it could be improved by increasing financial support. It is therefore welcome to see the 18% increase in apprenticeship rate pay from April to help make apprenticeships more attractive. It would be good to see more targeted support made available to those who have dependants and other financial responsibilities.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to look again at the levy and the length of apprenticeships. Adopting a modular structure and increasing flexibility could significantly boost competition rates by providing a more adaptable learning experience. Increasing the flexibility of apprenticeships also accommodates diverse learning needs and life circumstances, making it easier  for apprentices to balance work and training alongside personal and financial commitments. I look forward to Skills England examining those issues in a new chapter for innovative thinking on apprenticeships.

In my constituency of Portsmouth North, the City of Portsmouth college is a centre of excellence for apprenticeship training, especially in the areas of gas engineering and refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump engineering. The college plays a vital role in equipping young people with the skills they need and we need as a city and a country. The college’s gas assessment centre is now the leading provider of gas assessment training in Portsmouth, Hampshire and West Sussex, ensuring that our region remains at the forefront of those essential industries. From skilled trades, such as bricklaying, electrical engineering, carpentry and plastering, to professional careers in business administration, accounting and early years education, the range of courses reflects the diverse needs of our local workforce.

Crucially, the programmes are supported by strong partnerships with major employers, including BAE, Airbus, Queen Alexandra hospital, the NHS and of course the Royal Navy. The partnerships not only ensure that apprentices receive a direct link to potential careers, but mean that students can feel the value of training and future opportunities. The success of that approach is evident, and I am particularly proud to mention James Rowland, an apprentice in refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump engineering who won silver in the WorldSkills UK RACHP competition in December —an incredible achievement that showcases the high calibre of training and people in my city.

We must recognise the importance of sustainability in our skills development. Earlier this year, the City of Portsmouth college facilitated access to green skills funding, enabling local plumbing and heating businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to train apprentices in sustainability. That is precisely the kind of forward-thinking initiative that ensures our workforce remain prepared for the challenges of the future, and I am proud that my city is embracing those opportunities and looking forward to extending them with Skills England. \p Peter Swallow: A Government who are ambitious about growth need to be serious about skills, because without the workforce trained to build and insulate the homes we need, to install the next generation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to deliver excellent health and social care and to deliver high-quality early years education, none of the Government’s missions are achievable. Better skills mean good, often well-paid jobs. Apprenticeships are a driver of social mobility, and I am determined that my constituents feel the benefit of those opportunities. Skills England will have much to do to pull together a fractured skills landscape and deliver real change, but the Bill will enable it to make a solid start.

My constituency is home to the excellent further education college Bracknell and Wokingham college, which already does so much to offer young people the chance to deliver the skills of the future in everything from social care to sustainable technologies, from pharmaceuticals to construction. The college trains over  100 electrical installation apprentices, providing them with hands-on training in state-of-the-art electrical installation workshops, which were recently renovated with more than £200,000 of investment. The facility ensures that learners gain practical experience with the latest industry-standard equipment, preparing them for high-demand roles in electrical engineering, construction and sustainable technologies.

Last week, I visited the Bracknell Forest skills hub, led by Nikki Burns, a small business owner with years of experience. The hub is proactively identifying with employers where the skills gaps are, working with potential and existing employees to address those gaps, and teaming up with education providers, including my local college, to design bespoke courses to plug the gap, all backed with support from local and national Government. Since launching in September, the skills hub has already engaged with over 40 businesses, offered tailored support for over 50 jobseekers, trained 300 employees and built two bespoke courses. That is a system working as it should, but we need more collaboration, and Skills England will have a huge role to play in identifying skills gaps at both national and local levels, and in ensuring that businesses and Government are talking to each other.

Businesses understand the value of good skills and apprenticeships for their workforce. Waitrose, whose head office is in my constituency, is just one example. It currently has 1,200 partners on live apprenticeships across 30 schemes. When I visited Waitrose last year to meet some of its apprentices, I saw the true range of opportunities available, from people training up to look after Waitrose’s delivery fleet and maintain its bodywork to apprentices studying for a T-level in finance, in partnership with Bracknell and Wokingham college. Smaller-scale schemes also offer routes into employment. Waitrose’s “Building Happier Futures” programme is designed to support care-experienced young people—including those who have been in kinship care—into work.

When I have spoken to Waitrose and other businesses in my constituency, they have told me that among the barriers they face to offering more apprenticeships are the inflexibility of the apprenticeship levy and the overly burdensome requirements needed to run and recruit to an apprenticeship. That is why the reforms to apprenticeships that the Government announced two weeks ago are so very welcome. They will provide more flexibility for employers and those who want to take up these opportunities, shorten the length of some apprenticeships, and scrap the need for adult apprentices to pass English and maths GCSE. Those are common-sense changes backed by business. To be successful, Skills England will also need to get a grip on the lengthy time that it takes to update frameworks, to ensure that apprenticeships always remain at the cutting edge.

It is also vital that opportunities be genuinely open to all, including those with additional needs. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that only 29% of autistic people are in paid employment—that is not good enough. More targeted support is needed at local and national level to ensure that more autistic people can better access apprenticeships and other skills. Bracknell Forest council is currently looking at how to address that autism employment gap, particularly through more support into apprenticeships and other forms of work experience.

Skills England has a huge job ahead of it. Our country has too often relied on importing skills rather than nurturing our own talent, which is not progressive, and too many young people have missed out on valuable opportunities. Skills gaps are preventing us from building, growing and thriving. Skills England will be at the vanguard of the Government’s work to fix all that—no small task, but one for which the reward is great. \p Catherine Atkinson: I am proud to be a Derby MP and to represent a city with incredible engineering, manufacturing and technological expertise and skills. We make things in Derby. Yes, we have industrial giants such as Rolls-Royce, Alstom and Toyota, but we also have the brilliant small and medium-sized companies in their supply chains and more broadly, from a wide range of industries including rail, defence, nuclear energy, food production, aviation and digital technology.

What attracts so many businesses to Derby is our skilled workforce, but I know that even our city feels this country’s skills shortages. Under the previous Government, a third of UK job vacancies were a result of skills shortages, and the uptake of level 4 and 5 technical training in England fell to historically low levels. I warmly welcome the Bill, which lays the groundwork for the establishment of Skills England to assess and help to address our skills shortages.

Larger companies in Derby have been investing in skills and apprenticeships. The Rolls-Royce nuclear skills academy, for example, offers 200 apprenticeships a year, working with the University of Derby and Derby college. The Toyota academy provides skills not just for its own apprentices but for partner companies too. Many of our small and medium-sized employers are investing in their future by investing in skills, such as tech company Barron McCann, which I recently visited, and engineering firm Tidyco, which supports apprentices but also goes into local schools to teach young people the metalwork skills they need to make metal toolboxes. However, I have met many businesses that say that finding skilled workers is one of the greatest challenges they face and that under the last Government, they found apprenticeships too difficult and too inflexible to access.

We are fortunate in Derby to have Derby College, which is one of the largest FE colleges in the UK, and University Technical College Derby, which both work closely with employers to ensure they are providing the skills needed. One of the students told me that what he loved about learning at the UTC was that he felt he was learning something real. We have more than 3,000 apprentices in Derby, but I know that we need many, many more, and it is not just people starting out who need careers; we also need to reskill our workforce and allow those in mid-career to move into new roles and new industries.

I want to raise skills shortages in a sector close to my heart. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) and I held a meeting organised for us by the Rail Forum with the rail sector about skills. I often meet people in rail who talk about the sector as Britain’s best kept secret, with people sometimes joining by accident but staying because of the range of opportunities it offers, from engineering to customer services, project management to catering, digital roles, technicians and many more.

The Rail Delivery Group identifies that rail adds some £98 billion annually to local economies and £26 billion in environmental and social benefits, but the National Skills Academy for Rail reports that a third of the rail workforce are 50 or over and estimates that some 75,000 people will leave the industry by 2030 through retirement or other forms of attrition. This year is the 200th anniversary of the modern railway, which we as a country pioneered, and its future is crucial for growth and decarbonisation. I invite the Minister to encourage Skills England to work with the National Skills Academy for Rail and Great British Railways, which will have its headquarters in Derby, to address the skills shortages we face in rail.

I am really excited that under this Government, we are going to have a proper industrial strategy, and it is essential that we have the right skills and the right infrastructure to get the people and the goods where they need to be. I echo the call from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) for Ministers to set out how Skills England will work across Departments to support our industrial strategy. I urge all Members across the House to support this Bill. I look forward to working with Skills England to ensure that we have the skills we need, that we have opportunities for all and that we keep our economy on track. \p Sureena Brackenridge: I start with a fundamental point, which is that education does not always have to happen in a classroom. That is essentially what the Bill is about. Under the last Government, we saw a failure to tackle deep-rooted skills mismatches, a stubbornly high proportion of working-age people lacking essential skills and a severe shortage of higher technical training. As a result, our workforce struggled to meet the demands of a technology-driven economy, while employers faced persistent skills shortages.

This Bill is different. It abolishes the outdated Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers its functions to Skills England. This is a monumental shift that creates a unified, agile and responsive skills system. Can the Minister assure us that the Bill will underpin what good government is about—listening to the needs of businesses, workers and learners; that it will allow more people, young and old, to earn while they learn and develop skills that will serve them well for life; and that by improving access to these opportunities up and down the country, we will drive growth, reduce youth unemployment and improve life chances for so many people? \p Antonia Bance: My hon. Friend is eloquent in setting out the skills challenges of the Black Country. My constituency neighbours hers, and locally 40% of jobs need level 4 skills, but only 16% of people have those skills. That is the challenge we face locally. Does she agree that Skills England should be set up and based in an area of the country that desperately needs a skills upgrade, such as the Black Country? \p Sureena Brackenridge: I absolutely welcome that intervention and support it wholeheartedly. Communities such as ours have felt and seen the decline, and the Government  are laser focused on reversing that to unlock talent and opportunities, and to give our residents a better chance to get their futures back.

In the past few weeks I have been honoured to meet many impressive apprentices, from those at Wolverhampton Homes, who are ensuring that residents’ council housing is safe and well maintained, to Evie and Jake at Collins Aerospace, who are working on the future of flight and defence, as well as apprentices from Jaguar Land Rover, Halfords, BMW, Enterprise Mobility and Caterpillar. We have seen the consequences of a fragmented, outdated skills system, but with the Bill we now have a bold new direction that will empower workers, support businesses and drive economic growth across our country. The Bill will support apprenticeships now and into the future, and I urge the House to support it. \p Adam Thompson: I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill, unamended, which I believe is crucial to delivering growth and ensuring that we have a highly trained workforce that is fit for the future. As some in the Chamber will know, my job before coming to this place was teaching degree-level apprenticeships in electro-mechanical engineering. I saw at first hand the transformative power of apprenticeships in delivering high quality education while providing real world experience.

Like all apprenticeships, degree-level apprenticeships are a tripartite partnership between apprentice, university and employer—a model that has proved highly effective. Our employers frequently reported back to us that apprentices were better prepared for their professional roles than their counterparts with traditional degrees, and degree-level apprenticeship programmes have widened participation, attracting more students from deprived backgrounds, and more students with learning differences who may have struggled within the traditional university system.

As a Member of Parliament, I weave my background in education, advanced manufacturing, and apprenticeships into everything I do in this role. I recently visited WEBS Furniture Training, which trains apprentices in bespoke furniture manufacturing—a proper, old-school, artisan skill that they can carry with them and make a career from all their lives. Long Eaton and Ilkeston, the principal towns in my constituency, have a long and proud history of furniture manufacturing and lace making respectively. Both towns are what they are today firmly as products of the industrial revolution, and although the economy has changed since the Victorian era, bespoke furniture manufacturing, done by highly skilled, irreplaceable artisans, survives.

IKEA, robots, and giant factories in China cannot replicate the product of the honed, learned artistry that remains the backbone of our British manufacturing, and to survive now in this changing world, those are the kinds of skills that Britain must foster. Such skills are also an incredible means of spurring economic growth and resilience outside London and the greater south-east, and indeed outside the great cities of the north and midlands. Ilkeston and Long Eaton are post-industrial towns in the east midlands, and if we get this right, we can protect and enhance their world-beating lace making and furniture manufacturing industries long into the future.

If we are to build the 1.5 million homes that the Government have promised in the next five years, and hopefully many more long after that, and if we are to build the new towns, railway lines, reservoirs, prisons—all the things that this country has failed to invest in for so long—we will need the electricians, carpenters, joiners, builders, welders and plumbers that apprenticeship providers are training across our country.

I would like to present a case study about my good friend and colleague, Councillor Harry Atkinson. Harry was one of the many new young councillors elected in Erewash when Labour took control of the borough council in 2023. Next year, he will be Erewash’s youngest ever mayor, aged 25. Harry is also a highly skilled engineer. Leaving school at a time when about half of his cohort were going to university, Harry instead got an apprenticeship at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, which looms across the skyline of my constituency. Until last autumn, it was the last operational coal-fired power station in Britain. Harry has worked at Ratcliffe for nearly a decade. He has become so skilled that he has been promoted to managerial level and he is now a key trouble-shooter when things go wrong. While Ratcliffe is now in its decommissioning phase, Harry can be assured in his future because there is ample demand for the skills he learned in his apprenticeship, both locally and across the country.

Harry’s story represents the power of an apprenticeship —the conversion of hard work into real skills, an assured career and good pay. It is those kinds of jobs that we need to create for our young people. It is on us—this Government—to build a future where this kind of apprenticeship success story is the norm, not the exception, and where an apprenticeship holds every bit as much value as a degree, is every bit as desirable for children and parents, and is every bit as much a cornerstone of our growing economy. \p Alison Hume: I warmly welcome the Bill. It clearly demonstrates the Government’s ambitious commitment to training and apprenticeships. I will concentrate on the role that Skills England will play in aligning apprenticeship opportunities with the needs of local economies.

Scarborough and Whitby are beautiful places to live and to visit, but the levels of low-paid employment are not so appealing. According to the latest ONS figures, 26% of all jobs in my constituency were paid below the real living wage. On closer examination, the figures are even more alarming. For example, some 52% of part-time jobs done by women in my constituency were paid below the real living wage, while that figure for England was 32% and for Yorkshire and Humber it was 35%. The disparity between the figures for Scarborough and Whitby and the surrounding region should give us pause when we refer to local economies, because coastal communities can differ markedly from their hinterland.

Skills England’s work in assessing local needs and opportunities must anticipate what those needs and opportunities may be in future, as well as now. Well-paid jobs and careers are the goal for young people in my constituency. It is a crucial time for the green transition that we need to reach net zero and to create the urgently needed skilled jobs in the renewables sector. Scarborough is one of closest harbours to the offshore wind farm  sites in the North sea, especially Hornsea Four, making it a prime location for the transportation of equipment and personnel, as well as for service vessels.

The Government rightly see the potential of the creative industries to create growth, but we know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who do not live in metropolitan areas are often denied such opportunities. In the past year, the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough has created two full-time trainee posts, with partners at Coventry University. It will deliver a degree course in acting and has a programme for young people pursuing a career in the performing arts. I want us to build on that to provide far more opportunities for talented young people in Scarborough and Whitby to train locally in the creative industries, especially to bridge the skills gap in practical trades, such as lighting, sound and camera operation.

As in so many areas, construction trainees are urgently needed now, and will be in the future. I am excited by the Government’s support for a new development planned south of Scarborough, in Cayton, that will start as soon as possible and provide 2,500 new homes. The people building those homes and that infrastructure should be trained locally as far as possible.

I am pleased to tell the House that the construction skills village in Scarborough is already doing an incredible job of providing training for construction apprentices. It currently has 140 apprentices on its books, providing training in plastering, carpentry, bricklaying and electrical work. It has also just run its first solar panel installation course. Some 60% of its learners come from an area that is among the most deprived in the country, and a high number have additional educational needs, yet the record of its apprentices exceeds national outcomes. I ask the Minister to confirm that existing centres of excellence can be funded to provide more of what they already do so well.

In conclusion, I look forward to a future in which organisations such as the construction skills village are part of the Government’s plan to boost apprenticeships and build a better kind of local economy. \p Amanda Hack: I welcome the introduction of this Bill as a clear indication that we are giving apprenticeships the support and recognition they deserve. I started my professional career at a training and enterprise council—a TEC—and, once upon a time, I used to sign off training contracts for apprenticeships. It was always a pleasure to speak to young people at the start of their future, so I know at first hand how needed the Bill is for the FE sector, employers and young people, and it is incredibly exciting to have this back on the agenda.

For the last 14 years, there has simply been no strategic direction. The partnership between Jobcentre Plus, FE colleges, employers and the workforce has been slowly eroded, and it is clear that we need a reset. The one in eight young people currently not in training, education or employment need that reset, and apprenticeships are a part of that agenda. This Bill paves the way for the establishment of Skills England, giving it the tools to perform its new role and delivering on our commitment to assess and address the existing skills gap and identify where training can be utilised for new growth.

Since the apprenticeship levy was first introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, we have had a decline in the growth of training in all areas where we actually need it. The new growth and skills levy being introduced will replace the old system and include a new foundation apprenticeship that gives young people a route to careers in critical sectors, enabling them to earn a wage while developing their skills. It will also allow funding for shorter apprenticeships, giving learners and employers greater flexibility over their training than under the existing system. I have honestly lost count of the amount of employers who have asked for changes to the apprenticeship levy, and, under Labour, we will deliver.

We are clear about our strategy and that it must be cross-departmental. We are already opening homebuilding skills hubs to deliver fast-track training to apprentices so that we can meet our target of 1.5 million new homes being built. It is clear that Labour has done this before, and we will do it again. More than two decades ago, the regional development agencies understood the challenges in their regions and funded training for sectors where there were skills shortages. I was proud of the very small role I played in setting up a construction academy and providing a boost to HGV driver training in partnership with leaders in FE, the private sector and local authorities, all funded by the East Midlands Development Agency.

Stephenson College in my constituency is a key organisation locally that serves my community. It has a strong role as an anchor organisation, and we should not forget that. It has fantastic facilities for learning and has created an environment for young people to grow and thrive, but it has not been easy. Like so many FE colleges, it has been put under huge financial pressure in recent years. We have to ensure that our colleges are financially sustainable in the long term, and I welcome the recent additional funding for the sector while recognising that there is so much more to do.

There is also a role for Skills England to support constituencies in areas that do not yet have devolved powers. My constituency of North West Leicestershire does not have a devolution deal, but we have just as much potential to grow as everywhere else, and key engagement with local authorities, the chambers of commerce and local employers, as well as the FE and HE sector, will be key in delivering that growth.

Within our approach, we must ensure that we are putting a lot of thought into how regions can work together, so that if we move across boundary lines, we are still met with the same funding and unconditional support. We will drive that ambition as a Government to meet our targets—to go bigger and better than before, ensuring that our legislation has the greatest impact possible. I look forward to the continued conversations on the shaping of Skills England, enabling our young people to develop the skills they need for the future. \p Judith Cummins: I call the shadow Minister. \p Neil O'Brien: I start by paying tribute to the work of Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers in driving up the number of   apprenticeships in this House. Not only is that creating brilliant opportunities, but it is setting a brilliant example, so I pay tribute to them for the work they are doing.

We have heard some brilliant speeches today, and not just from right hon. and hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches. We have heard really important questions from the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes); from the chair of the APPG, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins); and from the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis). We also heard a great speech from the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). We do not always agree with the Liberal Democrats about everything, but a strength of the liberal tradition is suspicion of centralisation, which is what is in front of us today.

We have three main concerns about this Bill. First, there were good reasons why standard setting was put at arm’s length and closer to employers. As we have heard from Members across this House and in the Lords, this is centralisation, and alongside the other changes that the Government are making, it will risk directly damaging the status of these qualifications.

Secondly, the Government are doing several things that will make it less likely that businesses will take on apprentices, but rather than fixing those problems, the Government are reorganising. Skills England will be the 13th skills body in 50 years—it is yet more reorganisation, rather than a focus on the real issues, and from the Secretary of State’s comments earlier, it sounded as if there might be a further reorganisation later to boot.

Thirdly, we have real concerns that this reorganisation of the machinery of Government will lead to harmful delays in addressing some of the most important strategic issues that we face. Those concerns are borne out by the Government’s own impact assessment. As with the schools Bill, this Bill is highly centralising and does not address the real issues. There are multiple things in the skills system that we need to address, but I am slightly baffled as to why the Government are starting by creating a new agency within the DFE and abolishing IfATE.

It is worth explaining how we got to IfATE in the first place. For decades, people said that they wanted to make apprenticeships more prestigious, and part of the answer was growing higher apprenticeships. The number of people on higher apprenticeships went up from just over 3,000 in 2010 to over 273,000 last year—a huge increase—and the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) was absolutely right to talk about how good those degree apprenticeships are. They are great routes into good jobs. Indeed, the latest data shows that the median first degree graduate earned £29,900 five years after graduation, whereas a level 4 apprentice earned more—£33,800 on average.

As well as creating and boosting those higher apprenticeships, the other big change was a shift from a frameworks-based approach to a standards-based approach, and those standards meant a shift to a higher quality. They were led by employers, they had a longer duration—at least a year—and they had more off-the-job training and rigorous final assessments. That was much needed. In 2015, an Ofsted report found that even though some apprentices had been on the job for more than a year, they were not even aware that they were on an apprenticeship, such was the problem of quality. Things were being  funded that did not ultimately benefit young people, but did allow employers to pay a lower wage, which was obviously concerning.

The apprenticeship levy was designed to give employers much more ownership of the skills system, and making IfATE independent of Government was a big part of that, creating a properly employer-led system. I pay tribute to the work of IfATE—the Secretary of State did not thank it for its work, but I will do so. IfATE has created and maintained around 690 apprenticeships, supporting around 750,000 people on apprenticeships last year. It created 21 T-levels and 174 higher technical qualifications and enabled employer leaders to set a strategic direction for schools in their sector, and its website is an amazing resource.

However, we now see the Government completely reversing the direction of policy. While we lengthened apprenticeships, they have cut the length of an apprenticeship to eight months. While we grew higher apprenticeships, they are abolishing most level 7 apprenticeships, and by abolishing IfATE and bringing it in-house at the DFE, they are eroding independence and employer ownership. Why are the Government suddenly moving in a reverse direction? \p Peter Swallow: Does the hon. Gentleman not see that the Government are doing so because this is precisely what businesses are calling for? \p Neil O'Brien: I will come on to what businesses are saying in one second. The Government are doing two things that are going to be very bad for apprenticeship numbers. First, while apprentices are exempt from national insurance, the Budget—particularly its £25 billion increase in national insurance contributions—is cutting hiring and leading to job losses across the board. What employer groups are saying about that is pretty damning; be it the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses or the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, they are warning of serious job losses as a result of the Budget. That tax increase, and the damage it is doing, is focused on exactly the type of jobs that apprentices might traditionally get, so apprenticeships are being hit by the backwash from the Budget.

Secondly, the Government are planning to move funding from apprenticeships to other areas. In opposition, Labour talked about allowing employers to spend 50% of their apprenticeship levy funds on other things. As the election drew nearer, that commitment seemed to be disappearing. On 20 November, the Minister said that the commitment to 15% was “currently being reviewed”, but just weeks later, on 9 December, the Secretary of State said that the Government were still committed to “50% flexibility for employers”. It would be interesting to hear from Ministers whether that 50% still stands now.

Given that the levy funds £2.5 billion of spending, 50% is a lot of money to potentially move out of apprenticeships. We can argue about whether that is desirable, but all things being equal, it will certainly cut funding for apprenticeships. We might also be wary that it will undercut the purposes of the levy and have high dead-weight. In fact, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out:

“In principle, this could help employers to pay for other forms of training that they and their employees would find valuable. But the history of these wider training subsidies, such as the former Train to Gain programme”—

a programme under the last Labour Government—

“suggests that the result is often that much of the spending goes on training that firms would have provided—and paid for—even without the subsidy.”

The apprenticeship levy, whatever its flaws, did at least attempt to address this problem of dead-weight and discouraged freeriding by large firms, so that firms that invested in their workers did not lose out to those that did not. Since the levy was introduced in 2017, real-terms spending on apprenticeships and work-based training has increased in real terms by about a quarter, from £2 billion to £2.5 billion.

In a written answer to me, Ministers have confirmed that the Department has a forecast for the number of apprenticeship starts, but they have also said that they will not publish it. If it was published, it would surely show that removing possibly half of the funding would lead to a substantial drop in the number of apprenticeships. Perhaps that is why we are not allowed to see it. Those same reasons are why the Government are going back to shorter apprenticeships and away from the higher level, reducing quality and cutting length to try to offset the hit to numbers from other Government policies.

There are bits of this agenda where we share the same goals. We all want to see more SMEs offering apprenticeships and more young people getting apprenticeships. Although on average twice as many people started apprenticeships each year under the last Government as under the previous Labour Government, we still wanted that to be much higher. Although we are interested in the same questions, we have quite different ideas for how we address them. Part of the Government’s answer is to abolish the highest level of apprenticeships in order to redistribute the money.

The level 7 apprenticeships that the Government are axing currently account for just 9% of apprenticeship spending, but a lot of good things will potentially be lost by abolishing them. I have been contacted by firms worried about the abolition of the solicitors apprenticeship, which is a great way into the law for people from less privileged backgrounds. One firm worried about that is Bolt Burdon Kemp, which told me:

“This will really impact social mobility into sectors like law, accountancy, and consulting. The traditional route into law is expensive and therefore without the apprenticeship scheme many would not be able to afford to do so. We also believe it will have a wider detrimental impact on the reputation of apprenticeships.”

It has taken such a lot of effort to get that route going, and it would be a huge shame to lose it.

Likewise, level 7 apprenticeships are opening up great jobs and leadership roles in the public sector, too. Some 56,000 people started apprenticeships in the public sector last year. More than half of management apprenticeships at level 7 are in health and education. In fact, they were identified as having a key role in the NHS’s own long-term workforce plan. Public services will lose out, as will ambitious apprentices.

Because level 7 apprenticeships are a small part of funding, I am worried that the Government will now go after level 6 apprenticeships, which is a much bigger share of spending. A lot of employers are worried about that, too. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State sighs as I say that. Presumably when the Minister gets to her feet, she will promise that they will not do to level 6 what they   will do to level 7. It sounds like Ministers will be clear when they stand up, will they not, that they definitely will not do that to level 6 apprenticeships.

The last Government moved to make it more attractive for SMEs to take on younger people. From April, 16 to 21-year-olds have had 100% funding, rather than requiring the 5% employer contribution. We need to build on that by cutting bureaucracy and making it easier and more attractive to take on young people. Building on that would be more sensible than reorganisation, centralisation and the defunding of higher apprenticeships. This Bill abolishes IfATE and gives the Secretary of State significant powers as a result, but it says nothing at all about the new body, Skills England, which is intended to be at the centre of the skills landscape under this Government. That has been a pretty unwelcome surprise to some in industry.

In its briefing on the Bill, the Construction Industry Training Board noted that this was

“contrary to the previous characterisation of Skills England that was outlined in the…King’s Speech…and contrary to the vision for Skills England to be an independent body, established in law, with a cross-governmental role”.

The CITB makes an important point. IfATE existed to serve all employers—public and private—and across every Department. In contrast, Skills England will be a part of the DFE. The CEO of Skills England will be a job share between two civil servants who are currently running post-16 skills at the Department. I am told by former Ministers that they are good officials, but this is a recentralisation into the Department—as was pointed out by both the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood), and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire. \p Luke Murphy: May I ask the hon. Gentleman a question that I asked some of his colleagues earlier? In 2011 the last Government set up the Standards and Testing Agency, whose predecessor was a non-departmental public body that became an Executive agency, like IfATE. It sets statutory assessments for school pupils and develops professional skills tests for trainee teachers. The last Government did something very similar to this. Why was it okay then, but is not okay now? \p Neil O'Brien: That is an important question. The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to go into the history of apprenticeship regulation in England, which dates back to 1536. I will not detain the House with all the details, but suffice it to say that that was a move from one arms-length body to another, so it was different from this. None the less, IfATE was better than either of those things, which is why we ended up there.

The very act of a further reorganisation is likely to compound the effects of the Budget and the decision to move apprenticeships money into other projects. Indeed, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, there may be a drop in apprenticeship starts while IfATE’s functions are transferred to the Secretary of State. It says:

“The transfer of function from IfATE to the DfE could potentially cause a temporary slowdown in the growth rate of new apprenticeships and technical education courses due to potential delays in the approvals process resulting from the bill.”

It also says:

“This may disproportionately impact disadvantaged learners, who rely more heavily on these pathways for career advancement.”

So there you have it, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Government are moving money out of apprenticeships, and the Budget will also hit numbers, but instead of focused action to boost numbers for young people, the Government’s response has been to reduce quality, cut length and axe level 7 apprenticeships to try to prop up overall numbers. Now we have yet another reorganisation —one that takes us away from an independent, employer-led system, and one that will risk, in the Government’s own words, cutting apprenticeship numbers and hitting the most disadvantaged. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. \p Janet Daby: It is a pleasure to close the debate. I am grateful for the contributions of Members on both sides of the House; we have heard some excellent speeches. I welcome the points and questions that have been raised, and I will go through as many as time allows.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in her opening speech, skills are essential to our missions to drive economic growth and create opportunity. To achieve that, we need a skills system that is fit for the future. In every region, it should provide training options that lead to skilled work and give businesses the skilled workers whom they need in order to grow. I was pleased to hear from Members about the apprenticeships and vocational courses in their constituencies which have led to jobs, but most Members have also referred to significant challenges in our skills system.

Acute skills shortages are a particular issue in some areas. Skills supply does not match demand, and there is not enough business investment in skills. That, however, is what this Government inherited from the previous Conservative Government. We urgently need larger volumes of higher-quality training that meets employer needs, particularly in key sectors. For example, as we have already heard, there is an urgent need to build more homes, but a third of construction employers report finding suitable skilled staff a key challenge.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) mentioned levels 4 and 5 qualifications. In the UK, about 10% of adults hold them as their highest qualifications, as opposed to—shockingly—20% in Germany and 34% in Canada. We must, and this Government will, do better. Skills England, which has been delivering in shadow form since last year, is our new national body for meeting skills needs. It will simplify the skills system now and in the future, combining new functions with improvements in existing ones, within one dynamic body. In its first report, “Driving growth, widening opportunities”, Skills England highlighted the critical skills gaps that currently face the country. Across the UK, more than 2.5 million roles—almost one in 10—are in critical demand. The last Conservative Government seemed content with this, but putting it simply, this Government are not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) stated so well, this is about what the Bill will achieve for everyone: it is about growth.

Skills England’s initial assessment of the skills challenges in the economy, together with the “Invest 2035” Green Paper published last year and ahead of the forthcoming  industrial strategy, set out how the in-demand occupations of today are also expected to grow in the future. As noted by the Secretary of State, these growth-driving sectors include the life sciences, clean energy, digital and technology, and creative industries. By addressing our skills needs, the UK has a real chance of being a world leader in these fields, but we must do this now: we must not delay. We must build a skills system that looks ahead, and we must anticipate for the future. As was put so eloquently by my hon. Friends the Members for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards) and for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume), Skills England will enable employers to fill our current skills gaps and the likely ones of the future. Excellently, they recognise the need to anticipate our future skills needs.

To respond directly to the points raised by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), users of apprenticeships, employers, providers and assessment organisations regularly complain about the time it takes to update standards and assessment plans. It will remain the default position that a group of people will prepare standards and assessment plans, but removing the requirement to use a group to prepare standards in every instance will speed up the process and reduce administrative burdens. In line with IfATE’s current processes, all new standards and those that have undergone significant revision following review will, prior to being approved, be published online to give interested parties an opportunity to comment. It will only be in the minority of cases where simple and straightforward changes are proposed that these will not be published online for comment prior to approval. However, there will still be mechanisms for users of the system to challenge where a standard or assessment plan is not working in practice and needs revising. \p John Hayes: I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying about that, but will she in quick order set out how that will be directed either by the Secretary of State or by Skills England? We need to know not just the detail at the point of publication, but the structural needs in advance of that, so how will that be set out? Will it be set out in guidance—statutory guidance perhaps? \p Janet Daby: The right hon. Member is absolutely right that these things need to be set out, and they will be set out. This Bill is about transferring the role of IfATE to the Secretary of State and enabling the delivery of Skills England.

Skills England will work with key partners, including employers, training providers, mayoral strategic authorities and unions to form a national picture of where skills gaps exist and how they can be addressed. It will ensure employers have the skills they need to drive economic growth while creating opportunities across the country and building a highly skilled workforce.

During this debate, I have heard Members question the need to close IfATE and establish Skills England. This Government have committed to delivering for the skills sector, and we are listening to the needs of employers. This can be seen in our reformed growth and skills offer, but we must go further to address the fragmentation of our skills system so that we can close the most persistent skills gaps. The Bill paves the way for the full establishment of Skills England by enabling the new body to take  on and build out from IfATE’s work to shape apprenticeships and technical qualifications to meet the needs of employers and the economy as a whole.

The scale and urgency of the skills challenge that we face means we are setting Skills England up to have a broader strategic purpose than IfATE, including but stretching beyond the work previously undertaken by IfATE. Skills England will, for instance, provide an ongoing authoritative assessment of local, regional and national skills needs, which is absolutely needed. It will combine the best statistical data with insights from employers and other key stakeholders, and will use these insights to ensure the design of technical education and apprenticeships reflects the skill needs that have been identified, so that we can truly build a workforce fit for the future.

Labour markets and the skills required to increase productivity and economic growth vary considerably by region, and we have already heard from many Members about the different skills that are needed in their regions. Skills England will therefore also have a strong regional footprint, working closely with local skills systems so that they can tap into the comprehensive suite of training offers that it will build across the country. Skills England will also ensure that skills sit at the heart of joined-up decision making across Government. It will work closely with the Industrial Strategy Council, so that we have the skilled workforce needed to deliver a clear, long-term plan for the future economy, and with the Migration Advisory Committee, because growing the domestic skills pipeline will reduce our reliance on overseas workers.

While Skills England will have a broad and ambitious strategic agreement, it will not be able to deliver the scale of change that we need without its taking on IfATE’s important work, so the transfer of functions through the Bill is vital. The Bill does not, however, simply aim to transfer functions. It also includes a number of targeted changes intended to allow the system for designing and approving technical qualifications and apprenticeships to become more agile and responsive; we have been listening to employers, who have told us this is crucial if we are to work together to plug the skills gaps at the pace required. The Bill will provide greater flexibility when designing standards and apprenticeships plans and make processes easier to engage with, allowing experts to invest their time and expertise at the right point.

There is so much I would like to say in response to the many points that Members have made, and I apologise now for not being able to respond to the many excellent points and comments. However, there are a few very pivotal points that I do need to mention.

The Bill was amended in the House of Lords to delay its commencement by a year. It is disappointing that peers voted for a delay to the full establishment of Skills England, despite many Members of the other place supporting its aims. This Government are clear that employers need a fully functional Skills England now—as I have said, they cannot wait. The skills gaps in our economy are holding back growth and opportunity, and we need this Bill to give Skills England the key tools to tackle those gaps without delay. I cannot say that enough.

Skills England is in shadow form, and has already engaged widely, with more than 700 different partners representing thousands of individual organisations through roundtables, cross-section webinars and network events,  including the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors, as well as a range of employers and representative bodies from priority sectors, including digital, life sciences, green, construction and healthcare, and we will continue to listen to the voices of experts to shape what we do.

Question put, That the amendment be made. \p UNKNOWN: The House divided: Ayes 70, Noes 312.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 62(2)), That the Bill be now read a Second time. \p UNKNOWN: The House divided: Ayes 317, Noes 55.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time. \p UNKNOWN: Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]: \p UNKNOWN: (1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee. \p UNKNOWN: (2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 20 March 2025.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets. \p UNKNOWN: (4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading. \p UNKNOWN: (7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Jeff Smith.)

Question agreed to. \p UNKNOWN: King’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State.—(Jeff Smith.)

Question agreed to. \p UNKNOWN: Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), \p UNKNOWN: That the draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 20 January, be approved.—(Jeff Smith.)

Question agreed to. \p Tim Farron: I rise to present a petition on behalf of 2,830 of my constituents in Kendal and the surrounding communities in favour of retaining and keeping alive the Kendal Crown post office on Stricklandgate in our town.

In 2019, we successfully ran a campaign to save the Kendal Crown post office and, as a community, we are determined to do so again. The Crown post office serves our community wonderfully with fantastic staff, but more than that, it provides the home for the Royal Mail sorting office, and the postal workers there also do a wonderful job. To lose the Crown post office building could mean that we also lose the Royal Mail sorting office, and we are determined to stop that.

The petition states:

The petition of residents of the constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale,

Declares that Kendal Post Office should not be included in the list of 115 directly operated post offices at risk of closure; further notes Kendal Post Office’s role as a vital community service at the heart of Kendal; further declares that it should remain in its current position or should only be moved to suitable premises.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government and Post Office to reconsider and guarantee the future of Kendal Post Office.

And the petitioners remain, etc.

[P003046] \p UNKNOWN: Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jeff Smith.) \p Lee Pitcher: I am grateful for the opportunity to make the case for the economic contribution of Doncaster Sheffield airport in the House. Its reopening is the No. 1 priority for the people of Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, as well as residents right across our region.

Reopening our airport is not simply a matter of bringing jobs, though it will bring jobs. It is not just about the wider economy, though it will massively contribute to the economy. It is about our local pride, because our airport is our local pride. When DSA closed two years ago, our community was robbed of a key part of its history and identity. Seeing planes flying once again in the skies above Doncaster is my goal and the reason I address the House tonight.

I will use my time today to speak about the business case for reopening Doncaster Sheffield airport, the clear economic benefits and the importance of the Government’s commitment to finally get this over the line. I will talk first about the inspiring local campaign that has kept DSA high on the agenda since the airport closed its doors 818 long days ago, and that has provided the momentum to get us to where we are today: on the brink of making the dream of reopening a reality.

This is not the first time I have raised Doncaster Sheffield airport in this place. \p Mark Sewards: No. \p Lee Pitcher: No. Since being elected, I have asked many questions on the subject. I am sure that hon. Members across the House will be delighted to hear that this will not be the last time either. The fact is that it is important to so many constituents, and nothing demonstrates that better than the Save DSA campaign. I am proud to champion the campaign to save our airport in Parliament, and I hope my efforts in this place serve to highlight the wider efforts of local campaigners at home. \p Jim Shannon: I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing the debate forward. I spoke to him beforehand, so he knows what I am going to say. Does he agree that Government funding for local industry means that a rising tide lifts all ships and that the support for the airport will have a great add-on benefit to the local economy? Does he further agree that support for all our airports through the reduction of air passenger duty for flights within the UK would greatly increase the economic benefits to airports and the constituencies around them, as well as bringing tourism benefits? \p Lee Pitcher: I most certainly agree that the economic benefits of a regional airport opening are huge, not just for local jobs and the local economy but for the tourism trade, which is massively important right now.

When communities suffer the loss of major employers, as ours did, it is easy to slip into doom and gloom. Mark Chadwick—who I am pleased to say is here this  evening—and the rest of the Save DSA campaign team refused to sink into negativity. They knew that there was no good business case to close that airport. They knew that there was no good reason to abandon our community, rip out a part of our heritage and end those jobs. The Save DSA campaign and others have fought tirelessly since the airport’s closure to keep it from becoming yet another example of regional decline. I thank them for their efforts and massively commend their work, as well as that of other groups, such as the Friends of DSA, a group of ex-employees and supporters whom I had the fortune of meeting recently. Their dedication shows that it was never just a job for them. I know they will be following progress closely.

Members who are unfamiliar with our airport may ask, “Why is this so important?” When Peel decided to close the airport in November 2022, it was not just a blow to passengers; it was the end of hundreds of good, well-paid jobs in Doncaster and the surrounding area. \p Jo White: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I have heard time and again from my constituents about their regret that they no longer have easy access to an airport on their doorstep. Not only was Doncaster airport important for passengers, but it was embedded in the business community in Bassetlaw. Its closure meant job losses and the loss of regular income streams for local businesses. Does he agree that reopening the airport will create new opportunities for residents in my constituency, including in the world-leading STEP—spherical tokamak for energy production—project, which will deliver international investment and high-skilled jobs to the surrounding area? \p Lee Pitcher: Most certainly. I have already spoken with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the importance of a regional airport. My hon. Friend is quite right that it would make all the difference globally and internationally, particularly in Bassetlaw, where she lives.

Despite the best efforts of Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones, South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard and others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), the airport was closed. To say that was a bitter blow for our community is an understatement. The closure of our airport brought home the reality of the previous Government’s levelling-up programme. It felt back then like there was no levelling up for the people of Doncaster. It was not just jobs that we lost; we lost local pride and a connection to our past. Doncaster Sheffield airport is, apart from anything else, a vital link to our community’s aviation heritage.

Before it was the finest international airport in the country, DSA was RAF Finningley, with an aviation history dating back to 1915. During the first world war, planes from Finningley, flown by incredibly brave men, intercepted German zeppelins en route to Sheffield. During the second world war, Finningley served as a bomber base, and was once again at the forefront of protecting British lives and defending our democracy. When Julie Ann Gibson’s plane landed at Finningley in 1991, she trailblazed her way into the history books: for the first time in its 73 years, the Air Force had a female pilot. That heritage remains evident at the site today thanks to the incredible work of the Vulcan to the Sky trust, which is committed to preserving and protecting  two of the most iconic aircraft in British history: the Avro Vulcan and the English Electric Canberra. When I visited the trust last year, I was inspired by its work not only to protect those incredible feats of British engineering, but to support and guide Britain’s next generation of engineers through their work, including children and young people in my constituency—a link to our past; a promise for our future. I hope you can tell from my words, Madam Deputy Speaker, how intensely proud we are of our airport, and that you can hear why it is so important to my constituents.

Allow me to move on to the business case for reopening DSA. I have spent much of my time since becoming an MP talking to local business leaders, and I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked the same question: when is the airport reopening? Local businesses are as keen as anyone to see our airport reopen. They understand how strong the business case is. With renewed conversation nationally about airport capacity and the importance of bringing back growth, we need look no further than a regional airport practically ready to go.

A huge amount of work has been done in the background, led by Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones and her team, to make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed when it comes to demonstrating the viability of DSA. Ros knows better than anyone how vital it is to prove beyond doubt that reopening Doncaster Sheffield airport is not just good for local pride but a brilliant business decision.

An independent financial viability assessment has been clear: Doncaster Sheffield airport is absolutely a viable business prospect. The full business case projects more than 5,000 direct and 6,500 indirect jobs from a reopened DSA by 2050; £5 billion in gross value added to the economy; £2 billion in gross welfare benefits; and—the headline that really grabbed my attention—a projected benefit-cost ratio of 9:1. That means for every single pound put in, we get £9 in return. It is no wonder the business community is keen to see the airport back in action. Dan Fell, CEO of Doncaster chamber of commerce, has said:

“In addition to creating thousands of jobs, the airport will also act as a magnet for investment, help businesses trade internationally, further develop the region’s capability as a nationally significant hub for freight and logistics, and support inbound tourism.” \p Mark Sewards: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case to underscore his claim to be called Mr Doncaster Airport. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire, I support any move that leads to greater growth across our entire region. Does he agree that we need to not just seize opportunities such as this but accelerate the delivery of them, so that everyone in our region can feel the benefits of economic growth? \p Lee Pitcher: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for the work he does on the APPG to promote everything that is great and needed in Yorkshire. I could not agree more about the economic importance of this airport for us all.

This is not just an airport. This is not just Doncaster. A reopened DSA is also a reopened South Yorkshire, opening the door to inward investment from across the globe. Where once there were fighter planes, now there  will be freight planes. Doncaster sits at the heart of our great country. It is already one of our major transport hubs. With DSA open again, South Yorkshire will become home to new industry, cutting-edge renewable energy and technological innovation. \p Sally Jameson: As well as the exciting prospect of planes taking off from Doncaster once again, does my hon. Friend agree that this is a significant opportunity to turn both Doncaster and South Yorkshire into a hub for sustainable aviation fuel, creating high-skill, high-wage jobs for our local economy in that industry, in line with the Government’s growth agenda to ensure that economic prosperity is felt all over the country, including in areas such as Doncaster and South Yorkshire? \p Lee Pitcher: I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. I wholeheartedly agree about the importance of looking at sustainable aviation fuel and the opportunities it brings in terms of new jobs, aspiration and a future for our children and young adults in the area. People love to fly, and they will always fly. We need that to bring creativity back to our shores and learn from others, so it is massively important that we continue to promote technologies such as sustainable aviation fuel.

If we are looking for growth and reindustrialisation, and if we are looking to decentralise our economy away from London, where better to look than an airport that sits ready and waiting to serve? The promise of apprenticeships and high-paid, good jobs for our young people is another reason that our airport must reopen and one of my major priorities as an MP. Doncaster, like so many towns and cities in the north, has seen many of its brightest young people leave for prospects elsewhere. The promise of regional economic growth is a promise to our young people. It is a promise that says, “Yes, you can chase that brilliant, bright future, and you can chase it right here at home on your doorstep.”

Recently, I was lucky enough to meet the UK’s youngest pilot trainer, and the world’s youngest flight examiner, Kathan Dudhela. We spoke about Doncaster Sheffield airport, and he told me how excited he was that one day he might get to land on that historic runway. I left that conversation inspired by him, and determined to see Doncaster’s young people follow in his great footsteps. I will continue to fight for the apprenticeships and training opportunities that must come alongside a reopened Doncaster Sheffield airport.

So much has been achieved in the last few months. A £20 million investment has been approved, combining funds from Doncaster city council and the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority, which will go towards supporting the crucial early stage works that are required to mobilise and reopen the airport. An operator, Munich Airport International, has been announced, and before Christmas I was proud, along with many of my hon. Friends, to witness the first flight back since the closure, courtesy of 2Excel, which remained on the site all that time and never lost faith.

Do not get me wrong: things are looking great, but challenges remain. Important practical steps to make Doncaster Sheffield airport operational still need to be taken, and there are still hurdles to jump. However, none of the remaining challenges are impossible. All that is  required now is the political will to seize this opportunity and get us over the line. Right now the stars are aligned. The finances are committed, the operator is secured, the Mayor, combined authority and regional MPs are all on the same page. We cannot allow this opportunity to slip through our fingers. This is a moment to show the world that Doncaster and South Yorkshire are once again open for business. \p Jake Richards: My hon. Friend is making a characteristically tub-thumping speech about this airport. My constituency, and Maltby in particular, has many people who worked at and used the airport. My hon. Friend spoke about the opportunities for people to remain at home and still get on in life, which really strikes a chord with me when I speak to young people in Maltby. Does he agree that the airport is not just about flights, but about offering young people a future to remain at home, and a bright future to stay in Maltby? \p Lee Pitcher: Most certainly. Our young people have aspirations, but we need to provide jobs and opportunities for all. A reopened airport will provide those great opportunities for lots of different jobs, flights, potential future pilots, and superb jobs on the runway and the ground.

Will the Government make their commitment to a reopened Doncaster Sheffield airport clear? Will the Minister explain what concrete steps the Government will take to support the economic benefits of a reopened DSA, and will he commit tonight to supporting the full reopening of our airspace and to avoiding any further delays? We have seen the results across our great nation time and again, when vital regional infrastructure is not nurtured with the political will needed to sustain it. The desire for something different is a big part of the reason that the last election returned so many Labour MPs. Voters had had enough of regional decline, and enough of being told that this was the way it had to be. They wanted hope. This new Government promised to give them that hope, and they must now keep that promise.

My constituency office sits just across the road from the terminal building of Doncaster Sheffield airport. When I head into work, I look across the road and see a building that is beginning to wake back up after a fretful sleep. As Mark Chadwick told me, this transformative initiative is not just about securing a prosperous future for ourselves; it also paves the way for our children, and our children’s children. The reopening of our airport stands as a beacon of hope, offering unparalleled prospects for the community now and for generations to come. I am ready, all of us in Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme are ready. South Yorkshire is ready, the region is ready, and we want to see those planes above Doncaster once again. \p Mike Kane: Shakespeare said:

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

I think it is all three in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher). As a Lancastrian, I am feeling rather  intimidated by the line-up of Members on the Benches behind me, but thank God I have the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on my side, even though he is sitting on the Opposition Benches.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme on securing this important debate about the economic contribution of Doncaster Sheffield airport. I also congratulate him on being appointed as Labour’s utilities business champion. My hon. Friend has a great CV, from working his way up in the water industry to delivering logistics and infrastructure, so he knows what he is talking about when it comes to aviation infrastructure. He may be Mr Doncaster, but our hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) is Mrs Doncaster. As the aviation Minister, I fear the Division Lobby some evenings, as I am rugby tackled day in, day out about getting Doncaster Sheffield airport reopened. My hon. Friends care about the future of the airport, their constituents and the wider South Yorkshire region.

I have listened very carefully to the considered comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme, and by all the Members who contributed, and I will try to address most of them, but first I want to say a few words about Doncaster Sheffield airport. I know there was deep disappointment in South Yorkshire and beyond when the previous owners decided to close the airport at the end of 2022. That marked the end of a 17-year operation as a commercial airport, but before that it had a long and illustrious history as RAF Finningley. My hon. Friend mentioned Jean Lennox Bird, the first female RAF pilot in the UK. As we approach International Women’s Day, her contribution should not go unnoticed by the House.

The airport was well regarded by the people and airlines that used it, and it was frequently rated by Which? magazine as the best airport in the UK, with excellent customer service and passenger experience. Passenger numbers were continuing to grow prior to the pandemic, with more than 1.4 million passengers in 2019. From my many discussions with hon. Members from Doncaster and the Doncaster area—quite a few of them are sitting around me tonight—I know that its closure was deeply felt by the local community. I understand that the “Save Doncaster Sheffield airport” petition has had more than 100,000 signatures, which is impressive.

I am pleased to hear about the progress made in the airport’s reopening and the benefits that could bring, which I will come to shortly, but I want to set out the importance of aviation for the growth and prosperity of the nation. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know that I grew up under an aviation runway in my home constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East. Going to Manchester airport as a child and seeing the BAC One-Elevens, the Tridents and the Concordes, and even the space shuttle doing a low pass on the back of a jumbo jet in the mid-1980s, was inspirational for me, as it is for so many people as a career for the future.

As we keep saying, growth is this Government’s No. 1 priority. In her recent speech, the Chancellor was clear about the importance of the aviation sector in enabling that economic growth. Her speech invited proposals for a third runway at Heathrow and announced a new partnership between Prologis and East Midlands airport to build a new advanced manufacturing park, unlocking £1 billion in investment and jobs. That is a clear  demonstration of how aviation can contribute significantly to the economy, through being a key enabler of international trade, investments and connectivity.

Aviation is also a major employer in its own right, as I see in my own constituency. In 2022, the air transport and aerospace sectors alone directly provided around 240,000 jobs across the UK, providing opportunities in every part of the country. Overall, in 2023 the air transport and aerospace sectors directly contributed over £20 billion to UK GDP. That is why aviation is a key component of the Government’s transport strategy, enabling economic growth and connectivity, and investing in sustainability by connecting people, places and business.

Regional airports such as Doncaster Sheffield airport have an important role to play. They serve our local communities—people are proud of them—and they serve business by supporting thousands of jobs in the regions and acting as a gateway to international opportunities, whether that is a family holiday or supporting major investment decisions. They also provide important connectivity, helping to connect communities across the UK and the wider world.

I have been interested in hearing about the South Yorkshire airport city vision, which has the reopened airport at its heart. It is proposed that a reopened Doncaster Sheffield airport could help to raise economic and social wellbeing in Doncaster, delivering employment and facilitating wider development, which could help to unlock growth for South Yorkshire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme said, the council’s business case indicates that the airport’s reopening and wider development has the potential to support more than 5,000 direct jobs, boost the economy by £5 billion and provide wider welfare benefits of £2 billion by 2050.

I welcome the efforts of the council and the Mayors of Doncaster and of South Yorkshire to secure the future of the airport and the economic opportunities for the region. Significant progress has already been made, with the agreement of City of Doncaster council to lease the airport. The return of aviation activities in December last year was an important milestone, as was mentioned, as 2Excel landed the first aircraft there in three years. As the aviation Minister, I add my thanks and congratulations to it for sticking with the airport.

As my hon. Friend said, another important milestone was reached earlier this month, as Munich Airport International was appointed by City of Doncaster council to help to progress the airport’s reopening. There will be many more milestones and many more challenges, but, as the Chancellor set out in her recent speech, this Government will work with City of Doncaster council and the Mayor of South Yorkshire to support their efforts to reopen Doncaster Sheffield airport as a thriving regional airport.

As well as the airport, this Government are committed to supporting all modes of travel in the region to support the local economy. Last November, South Yorkshire was allocated £17 million-worth of bus improvement plans and funding to support bus services. Just last  week, the Mayor of South Yorkshire was informed that he would receive more than £5 million in the next financial year to invest in active travel, which is in addition to almost £9 million for South Yorkshire. In January, the Department announced funding for low-emission vehicles as part of the levy funding, as well as funding for zero-emission buses, proving the Government’s commitment to decarbonisation.

The South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority received £8.4 million of funding from the ZEBRA 1 programme for 27 electric buses and charging infrastructure. Furthermore, the Government are progressing planning and design work to support future delivery of our plans for northern rail connectivity, and we will set out details in due course. That will inform the work being undertaken, such as the development of Rotherham mainline station. I am also pleased to support South Yorkshire’s local transport priorities with an investment of £570 million through the city region sustainable transport settlements programme. That is a five-year deal with £5.7 billion of Government investment to improve the transport networks of eight city regions across the UK.

As part of our commitment to local transport, we announced in the autumn Budget that we will uplift funds and funding nationally in this area in 2025-26 by £200 million, helping to improve the local transport in our largest city regions and drive growth and productivity across the country. I mention that because transport is a rich tapestry, and having an airport as a hub is important. We know that the destinations that airports reach are dependent on public transport penetration time of within an hour, so improving public transport and active travel in this area will help Doncaster Sheffield airport to reach the markets it wants to reach in the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme also spoke about airspace at Doncaster Sheffield airport. Airspace modernisation is one of our manifesto commitments, and the Government are committed to its delivery. It remains a key aviation priority for the Department, which aims to deliver quicker, quieter and cleaner journeys to benefit those who use and are affected by UK airspace. We have seen great progress in airspace modernisation in the north, with airports now preparing for their public consultations. I know that officials and the Civil Aviation Authority will be working tirelessly to make sure that we reopen that airspace in the interests of Doncaster Sheffield airport.

Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which has been an opportunity for hon. Members to highlight the importance of Doncaster Sheffield airport to their constituents and regions. My officials and I look forward to continuing engagement with both South Yorkshire combined authority and City of Doncaster council to support their efforts to reopen this airport.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned.