With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement on delivering world-class skills in England. Natural resources, a big labour force and a dose of inspiration used to be all that was required for countries to succeed economically. Today, it is the skills of our people that matter most. We have achieved much since 1997, with 2.6 million more people in jobs, more than 1.7 million adults with literacy and numeracy qualifications and record numbers in our universities, but there is still huge challenge ahead.

At present, in the OECD, we are 18th for low skills, 20th for intermediate skills and 11th for high skills. To be competitive in a global economy, to reach 80 per cent. participation in employment and to offer new opportunities to people in work, we must do better.

Today, the Government are publishing the document “World Class Skills”. It sets out how, with individuals and employers, we will bring about a skills revolution and close the gap between where we are now and where we need to be in 2020. Our ambition is to ensure that this country becomes a world leader in skills by 2020. That means being in the top quartile of OECD countries—the premier league for skills.

The targets that Lord Leitch recommended, and which we have accepted, are hugely ambitious. We want 95 per cent. of adults to achieve functional literacy and numeracy by 2020, and our aim is to have more than 1.1 million more people achieving that over the next three years. We also want more than 90 per cent. of adults to be qualified to at least level 2 by 2020, with one and a half million more adults achieving a full level 2 for the first time over three years. Another objective is to shift the balance of intermediate skills from level 2 to level 3, with half a million more people reaching that standard over three years. We want to have more than 40 per cent. of adults qualified to level 4 and above by 2020, with 1.25 million more by the end of the comprehensive spending review period.

Enhancing all our skills so much, so rapidly, will take more than the effective use of public and private money, more than changes in the way in which we organise and deliver training, and more than our overhaul of qualifications so that all employers rate them and individuals feel they are worth striving for. It will take a culture change in attitudes towards training and skills. The result will be that in the years to come, when somebody complains that they are in a dead-end job, their best friend will ask what they are doing to improve their skills. Alternatively, when employers express frustration at the skills of their employees, others will ask what they are doing to train them.

As individuals and employers accept greater responsibility for improving their skills, they must know that we in Government accept our responsibility to support them. “World Class Skills” sets out how we will meet our responsibility. We must ensure that the rising generation starts working life with higher qualifications and higher skills. We will introduce legislation to raise the participation age to 18. We will boost the number of apprentices in England, meaning that all suitably qualified young people will have access to an apprenticeship, and we will introduce a new entitlement to free training for those aged 19 to 25, in order to help more people in that target group achieve their first full level 3 qualification.

Seventy per cent. of the work force of 2020 have already left compulsory-age education. That is why the focus of “World Class Skills” is on adults. Our proposals are based on clear principles. First, we must ensure that employers are at the heart of the skills system. Improved skills improve productivity and competitiveness, but training must be tailored to employers’ needs, delivered in ways that support their businesses, and offer qualifications in which they have confidence.

The creation of a demand-led system of skills is our single most fundamental reform. We will make “train to gain” a much broader service that will help employers of all sizes and in all sectors to improve the skills of all their employees. We will put employers at the head of the skills system. Working with the devolved Administrations, we will create a new UK commission for employment and skills, and strengthen the employer voice at the heart of the system. We will reform the remit of sector skills councils to make them more sharply focused on raising employer ambition and investment in skills at all levels. Employers will have the key role in reforming vocational qualifications to ensure that they generate economically valuable skills. It will be easier for employers’ in-house training programmes to be accredited. More higher education institutions will collaborate with employers to develop programmes and delivery methods that meet their higher-level skills needs.

Secondly, individuals must also get training that is tailored to their needs. New skills accounts will give individuals greater ownership and choice over their learning, motivating them to gain skills and achieve qualifications, enter work and progress in employment. Moving from a poor job with few prospects to a better job can be as hard as moving from unemployment into work for the first time, so we will back skills accounts with a new universal adult careers service in England. Working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus, the careers service will be able to advise on training and skills, and help overcome other barriers to ambition, such as sorting out child care. We will legislate to give adults a new legal right to access free basic literacy and numeracy programmes and training, leading to their first full level 2 qualification.

Thirdly, we will work in partnership with employers and employees. We will step up the drive to encourage employers, large and small, to sign the skills pledge to benefit their staff. Companies that sign the skills pledge make a public commitment to support their employees to become more skilled and better qualified. We will support them through “train to gain”. We recognise that the encouragement of a colleague may often be the single most influential factor in persuading someone to improve their skills. So we will encourage trade unions in the important part they have to play in achieving our skills ambitions, through union learning representatives—currently 18,000 strong—and by building on the achievements of the new union-sponsored training programme, unionlearn.

This partnership approach, in which we shall engage learners and employers, is crucial to the new culture we are seeking to create. Without it the nation will not meet the targets we are setting out. Failure is not an option. That is why Lord Leitch proposed that in 2010, the new commission for employment and skills should review whether we are making satisfactory progress or whether we need to introduce a statutory workplace training entitlement. I can confirm today that we will carry out such a review in 2010. However, let us make every effort to achieve our ambitions without legislation.

Our proposals benefit employers and employees alike. The business case for investing in skills stands in its own right. It makes sense for Government to work with employers purely for the economic benefits and improved competitiveness it will bring. However, we must not forget that for many people, improved skills are the route to better jobs, higher incomes, reduced child poverty and improved social mobility. If we enable parents on low incomes to raise their aspirations and to have the opportunity to improve their lives, we can be sure that their children will have higher aspirations and better opportunities too.

Lord Leitch challenged us all to raise the nation’s skills base, build productivity, increase social inclusion and improve economic competitiveness. With employers, employees and other learners, unions, colleges, universities and training providers, we will meet that challenge. As our new skills campaign on television and in the press so rightly says: “Our Future. It’s in Our Hands”. I commend the paper to the House.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Of course, we share the Government’s aim of achieving world-class skills. We agree with the powerful statement by Lord Leitch in his report that

“In the 21st century, our natural resource is our people—and their potential is both untapped and vast. Skills will unlock that potential.”

However, the Government have been making big promises about skills for years. In Budget after Budget, the Prime Minister launched initiative after initiative—initiatives that are supposed to be rising to the skills challenge. In his 1999 Budget statement, he said:

“Britain must make a quantum leap in skills”.—[Official Report, 9 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 176.]

In fact, even before Labour came to office, in 1996, he said:

“I want Britain to be a world skills superpower”.

Today we are told that our aim is to be in the top quartile of OECD countries—I guess that is what 10 years in government does to people.

Perhaps one reason for that downgrading of ambition is the uncomfortable evidence that some key problems have been getting worse. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training has risen from 1.08 million in 1997 to 1.25 million today. That is a 15 per cent. increase. The statement should have recognised that we need a change from the failed approach of the past. Both Lord Leitch’s report and the Secretary of State use the right language. They talk about a demand-led system; we completely agree. They talk about its being employer-driven; again, we completely agree. However, in order to deliver that type of system, we need a tough-minded and rigorous assessment of how our skills policies need to change, which is not, I am afraid, what we have had today.

The report and the Government talk about a flexible employer-driven system, but the Government are keeping the panoply of controls that we have in our current centrally planned system. They will still set their plans for specific qualifications region by region, level by level and subject by subject, and further education colleges will still have to comply, churning out the paper qualifications that the Government want them to produce—when too many of those paper qualifications are not valued by employers, who understand that, sadly, a qualification is not always the same thing as a skill.

FE colleges, about which we have heard very little from the Secretary of State, are desperate to have more freedom to respond to local needs so that they can be employer-driven, but instead they have 17 different regulatory bodies telling them what to do. As we heard in the Foster report only last year:

“There is a galaxy of oversight, inspection and accreditation bodies. They need to be rationalised, co-ordinated and focused.”

That is what the FE colleges are calling out for. Instead of tackling the 17 bodies that already supervise FE colleges, the Secretary of State has just announced the creation of an 18th—the new UK commission for employment and skills.

Sitting on top of that structure is the Learning and Skills Council. I think that if Lord Leitch had been given his head, he would have wished to get rid of the Learning and Skills Council. Instead, the Secretary of State has announced today a fifth reorganisation—reforming the remit of sector skills councils. What are the Government really going to do about the Learning and Skills Council? After the latest reorganisation in Whitehall, will the Secretary of State tell us what he expects its long-term role and function to be?

If the Secretary of State had stood at the Dispatch Box and said that central planning had not worked, and that he was genuinely shifting to a demand-led, employer-driven system, we could have supported him, but sadly his statement today does not rise to that challenge.

Let me ask the Secretary of State about specific aspects of his statement. He set out several numerical targets—“ambitious” targets, he called them—that arose from Leitch, but it is noticeable that he did not give a target for apprenticeships, despite the fact that the then Chancellor said, as recently as in the 2007 Budget, that

“There will be average rises of…cash each year for the next three years, enabling us to…do more to double apprenticeship numbers to 500,000”.—[Official Report, 21 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 828.]

In his December 2007 pre-Budget report, he again talked about apprenticeships rising to 500,000. Has the Secretary of State dropped the target, either because he no longer believes in such central targets for apprenticeships, or because he is afraid that he will not reach it? After all, the number of apprenticeships has fallen from 135,000 to 123,000 in the past 18 months. If he is committed to the target, why did he not refer to it in his statement?

The Secretary of State referred to focusing on adults—rightly so, because many of the people whose skills we need to raise are already in the work force. However, we really need to know what the Government are doing about the catastrophic fall in the number of FE adult learning places, which is down by 1 million. We cannot talk about the importance of adult retraining and reskilling when the Government’s mechanism for financing FE colleges shifts those colleges away from helping adults. He also talked about making “train to gain” a broad service, but is he aware that a criticism made of “train to gain” is that it has a very high dead-weight cost? A lot of that cost goes on programmes and training that would have happened anyway.

I am sure that, like me, the Secretary of State enjoys reading Institute for Fiscal Studies appraisals of his policies, and I am sure that he will recognise its statement that there is no “systematic evidence” that the programme had

“significantly increased employer provision of, or employee engagement in, training”.

The appraisal estimated that about 85 to 90 per cent. of “train to gain” costs could be dead-weight. It went on to say that it could be that

“the true effect is zero percentage points implying 100 per cent. deadweight.”

Why are the Government putting more money into “train to gain” when evaluations show that it has such a high dead-weight cost? Of course, the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills responded to that challenge by saying:

“the idea behind Train to Gain is to assist small businesses, which is where a particular problem lies”.—[Official Report, 8 February 2007; Vol. 456, c. 975.]

It appears that the current Secretary of State has changed that approach; “train to gain” is no longer to be targeted on smaller businesses, in an attempt to respond to the problem of dead-weight cost. Why does he believe that his new general approach will improve the situation in any way?

We welcome the Secretary of State’s comments on the new skills account. It could be significant, and it could give individuals much greater control over their training. We look forward to seeing the detail of that proposal, and we hope that lessons have been learned from the failure of individual learning accounts. However, I have to say that the statement does not rise to the challenge of providing an employer-driven, individually focused service to improve the nation’s skills. It does not rise to the challenge of his new Department.

Obviously, to some extent I am slightly disappointed by the tone that the hon. Gentleman has adopted, but it is important to explore the claims that he makes so that we can see whether his response deserves to be treated as having any credibility. He attacked the Government for their failure to make progress on skills over the past 10 years—but as I said in my statement, the reality is that there has been considerable progress since we inherited a disastrous situation from the Conservative Government.

It is a bit rich to hear questions being asked about apprenticeships, because in the early 1990s, the reality was that one could go from one end of the country to the other and barely find a young person who was entering an apprenticeship, because the entire system had collapsed. We had to rebuild the apprenticeship system, not just in terms of the number of people involved, but in terms of the success rates and completion rates, which have gone up dramatically over the past two or three years. We have brought 1.14 million adults up to level 2 in the past four years. We have taken 1.75 million people through the skills for life programme. There were 250,000 people on apprenticeships in England last year, compared with only 75,000 in 1997—and those 75,000 had only just begun. We have every reason to be proud of what we have achieved from a very difficult starting point, but we have the honesty to set before the House the scale of the challenge that faces us in the years ahead.

As for whether what we have said matches up to what is needed, we accept some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised about FE colleges, but he will know that work is under way to design and introduce a lighter-touch regulatory system for them, and I hope that we can make more progress on that in the months to come. He criticised us first for expanding “train to gain”, and secondly for failing to introduce a demand-led system that responds to the needs of employers. If he does not like “train to gain”, he will at some point have to tell us what a demand-led system shaped by the interests of employers would actually look like. “Train to gain” is designed to make sure that the money in the skills system is used to ensure that FE colleges and other providers offer the training provision that employers actually want and recognise, and qualifications that employers value.

The hon. Gentleman was somewhat dismissive of what we said about taking a look at vocational qualifications, but to me that issue is central. There are employers who say that they are not sure that level 2 qualifications give them what they want, so our plans to work with the commission for employment and skills to overhaul the sector skills councils are central if we are to have a skills system that delivers what employers want.

The issue of dead-weight, particularly in the employment training pilots, has been raised. We will bring forward more detailed plans to extend “train to gain” in the autumn, and we will then need to set out how we intend to keep an eye on the issue. Of course, we do not in any way want to lose the quality of service offered to smaller employers, which they rate very highly, but it is right that the same responsiveness should be offered to a wider range of employers. I hope that I have covered the fundamental points raised by the hon. Gentleman. Incidentally, I should say to him that the target of 500,000 apprenticeships is set out prominently in the document. That is a UK target, and my commitment today is on meeting England’s share of that overall target, but in no sense has the UK target disappeared from our ambitions and aspirations.

First, may I explain that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who would have responded to the statement, is unavoidably detained elsewhere by a family illness?

I guess that the Secretary of State spent the last two weeks immersing himself in the details of the Leitch report, because much of his statement is simply a rehash of the many targets in that report, and a repetition of many old announcements made by previous Ministers. However, the one issue not addressed in the statement is whether there is a meaningful future for the Learning and Skills Council. Nine initiatives are mentioned in the statement, but time only permits me to comment on a few of them.

The main legislation that will follow from the statement will have to do with increasing the education and training participation age to 18. The draft legislative programme, published by the Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago, referred to compulsion for individuals, a duty for parents, enforcement, penalties and sanctions. Is that the right language to use when encouraging more young people to take part in education and training? Would it not be much better to talk about giving them meaningful entitlements and incentives?

There are voluntary pledges for employers until 2010, but we are talking about enforcement against individuals and their parents.

No assessment has been given of the cost of implementing the increase in educational participation or how that cost is to be shared by the state, the individual and crucially employers. Will the Secretary of State please address that?

A second tangible announcement in the statement is old news. It is about increasing the free entitlement from 19 to 25 to level 3 provision. That pledge was made at least twice by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, but we still do not know whether there is any new money to back it up. In his first statement in his new role, the Secretary of State announced £400 million of additional support for students in higher education. What additional support are the Government pledging for level 3 provision?

The statement is full of warm or tepid phrases about how the Government intend to implement the Leitch report. It refers to refocusing the efforts of sector skills councils, and more universities collaborating with employers. What on earth does that mean? I know that the Secretary of State is probably still getting to grips with what universities do, but I know that most universities, if not all, already have extensive collaboration programmes with employers. That is the basis of foundation degrees, and many employers and universities collaborate on cutting-edge degrees, such as in gaming technology, in which Britain leads the world. What more do the Government expect higher education to do?

On the voluntary skills pledge to which employers are meant to sign up by 2010, the statement speaks of stepping up the drive. Again, what on earth does that mean? We know that the former Chancellor appointed his new comrade, Lord Digby Jones, as the skills champion who will charge around the country exhorting employers to sign up to the pledge. Now that he has another role, will the Government please explain to us who will be exhorting employers to sign up to the pledge and how, over the next two and a half years up to 2010, they will assess whether employers have met that pledge in sufficient numbers and to a meaningful extent before they can decide whether legislation is needed?

The Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement of a universal adult careers service, but where is the money to back that up? The statement is silent on whether new resources will be put behind the service, or whether it will be a re-aggregation of existing budgets. Will the Secretary of State recognise that many people start on their career paths before they become adults, when they are 14 or 16? Does he agree that he needs to co-operate with his ministerial colleague in the Department for Children, Schools and Families to set up an independent careers and guidance service for 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds to complement the work being done with adults?

The right hon. Gentleman set out an ambitious agenda for his new Department, but there are three strands to the Department. Higher education and science are backed by billions of pounds of Government resources, but there is a risk and a perception out there that the adult skills element of the Department is the Cinderella. He will have to work hard to redress that perception. The most compelling change that needs to take place is more engagement and more investment by employers. Unless the Government are willing to back up the statement with action rather than exhortation, the ambitious target of being in the premier league by 2010 will be very hard to achieve.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions, which are all pertinent. I shall try to address them all. Of course I understand why the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) is not able to be present today.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the Learning and Skills Council, so I shall take the opportunity to set out the position. As he knows, the funding for school sixth forms, sixth-form colleges and the contribution of FE colleges to 14-to-19 provision will transfer from the LSC to local authority ring-fenced budgets. My estimate is that we will not be able to give effect to the full legislative changes until the academic year 2010-11, so the legal responsibility will remain with the LSC over that period. We will co-operate sensibly and closely with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to make sure that provision is delivered effectively both for young people in that age group and for adult learners.

For post-19 education and training, we will consider how best to deliver the functions and services that support the FE system, and I want to build on the progress made with the LSC over recent years in developing a demand-led approach. As we do that, we will work closely with the LSC and other national partners, and consult schools, colleges and providers to ensure that the new arrangements are introduced smoothly. We will take the opportunity to review how the funding and accountability framework can best support initiative and high performance at institutional level and across the FE sector as a whole.

On participation to 18, the set of principles are similar to those that I discussed in my statement. We would rather not use compulsion, but we cannot rule it out if sufficient progress is not made. That must be the approach to young people in education and training. The detailed allocation of costs will depend to some extent on the balance between employer-based and work-based training.

On 19-to-25 provision, I make no apologies for the fact that the Government have set out repeatedly their vision of being able to offer an apprenticeship to anybody in the 16-to-19 age group who wants to go on an apprenticeship, and a commitment to level 3 up to age 25. It has taken time to build up capacity in the apprenticeship system from where we started to bring that goal more and more within reach, and we continue to make progress. I do not regard it as a rehashed promise, but rather as one towards which we are steadily making progress.

With respect to universities, HEFCE has developed a package with universities for about 5,000 co-funded higher level placements with industry for the coming period. That is a step in the right direction, but the bigger issue that the hon. Gentleman might like to consider is that, of the entire training budget held by employers, only 3 per cent. is spent with higher education institutions. That suggests that there is a massive potential to increase the volume of higher level education and training involving universities from the present level. That is something that we need to discuss in the years to come.

On the skills pledge, we will step up the drive to get companies to join the skills pledge. The noble Lord Jones, who is now a Government Minister, brought a particular and individual verve and passion to the skills pledge, and he slotted into the post very naturally indeed. I have already met Sir Michael Rake, who will chair the commission on employment and skills, to discuss how we continue and whether it would be appropriate to look for a single envoy or whether the commission as a body, which will have strong employer representation, may be a better vehicle to take the pledge forward. I hope we can resolve that quickly.

The starting point for resources for the adult careers service is to bring together learndirect and nextstep. It makes sense to co-ordinate those services and to stress the importance of the close working relationship with Jobcentre Plus. On the starting point at 14, the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the diploma programme.

Finally, I do not believe that adult skills is a Cinderella. What Leitch has given us for the first time is a logical framework to approach funding, with the public sector recognising a responsibility particularly in the area of basic skills and level 2 qualifications, and a recognition that higher level qualifications should rightly attract a larger contribution from individuals and employers because the direct and immediate benefits to them are that much greater. That gives us a sensible framework for deciding how we want to fund this crucial area of work.

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend to his place, and I warmly welcome the statement. The fact that one of his first speaking appointments was to the all-party skills group and the National Skills Forum augurs well for the emphasis and focus that the Government are putting on skills. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments on culture change and the focus on adults. I should like to raise two issues with him which have informed the discussions that the all-party group have had about Leitch since the report was published at the end of last year.

The first is about focusing on adult learners. My right hon. Friend will know all the statistics about the demographic gap that we are going to face over the next 10 to 15 years in terms of younger people, which means that we must place even more emphasis on older people in the work force. Does he agree that reskilling is as important as upskilling as part of the central strategy to gain more effectiveness in this area?

My second point is a related one. One of the criticisms of this policy that has been made in the past is that it has not always been finessed enough, particularly in relation to older learners. In considering how we take forward the exacting targets that Leitch has set, can we focus more on age-proofing and the particular needs of people in their 40s and 50s, and even beyond? We need to get those issues right in order to maximise the contribution to the skills improvements and ambitious targets that my right hon. Friend and his Department rightly look to.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments and acknowledge the important work done by the all-party group on skills, not least in bringing the world skills competition to the UK in a few years’ time. Reskilling is enormously important. One of the challenges is to get the relationship between FE colleges and other training providers and employers right so that it is simple for employers to identify the package of training, and the delivery method, that will meet their needs. It may well be that the person is already in work and we have to raise their level of skills without disrupting the way in which the company or employer operates. “Train to gain” and the brokerage service will be as available to people facing that problem as to those who are, say, trying to meet the skills pledge to get people into level 2. That is an important part of its role.

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s point about age-proofing. I see no reason why the policies that I set out should not be of equal benefit to people of all ages in the work force, but if there are particular issues that he would like to raise with me, I would be more than happy to meet him, and perhaps other members of the all-party group.

Several hon. Members rose—

Order. May I remind all hon. Members of the need for just one question and a short response so that more may be successful in catching my eye?

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. For the whole of my working life, we have had education for the best and skills for the rest. Leitch has put skills right at the heart of the national agenda, not just the Government’s agenda. In terms of the 40 per cent. target for level 4 students, or graduates, by 2020, does the Secretary of State recognise that simply adding more graduates to our work force is not what UK plc really wants? There is a massive need for scientific and technical skills, particularly at level 4. What plans does he have to address the market so that we can produce graduates with the relevant skills for business rather than simply more graduates to meet a target?

There are two issues that we need to address. First, there is the way in which a range of higher education institutions sets out to deliver the types of degree course that the hon. Gentleman is talking about; foundation degrees are often particularly relevant in this area. Secondly, not every higher level qualification is a degree qualification, although it may involve that level of study. Many companies are working with higher education institutions on training programmes and delivering higher level education tailored to the needs of those companies. Some universities have made much better progress at organising themselves to know what is needed in the local economy at the higher level of skills. I agree that we should not be trapped by a particular model of what a degree should look like or by what a particular programme of study should look like. That will ensure that industry gets the skills that it needs.

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly the emphasis on mentoring in the trade union movement. However, it is not needed in the trade union movement alone. In some communities, particularly the most deprived, there is a deep-seated aversion to education and skills, and sometimes even to employment. May I draw to his attention an organisation called Skills Link, which operates in Tipton in my constituency and which uses community mentors to involve people in the education and learning process? Will he look at that with a view to seeing what lessons could be learned in raising skills in the most deprived areas?

I would be very interested to discuss the work that my hon. Friend describes. I met representatives from the TUC a few days ago and had a discussion with them about whether the expertise of 18,000 union learning representatives could be used in community, as well as workplace, settings. The statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that preceded mine helped to set out how both our Departments need to work together in communities of the sort that my hon. Friend mentions. We do not want a situation where we get somebody into work and then they drop out again and have to reapply three months later. Providing people with skills as they go into work, and maintaining and improving their skills levels in work, is absolutely vital to sustainable employment and a sustainable cut in unemployment in those communities. We need to use the skills of everybody we can find, not only public sector employees, to enable that to happen.

Any statement on improving skills is welcome. However, I should like to concentrate on the high skills area, where we are 11th in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in terms of quality. Those are the skills that really attract and retain investment in the knowledge-based creative industries. Can the Secretary of State assure me that he will take that into account in reforming the remit of the sector skills councils, which can be very responsive to what the industry needs if they work creatively with it? They are often criticised on the basis that they are still not multi-disciplinary enough to meet the new challenges that arise in some of the new creative, added value industries, where they cross sectors rather than just lying within one sector.

Within that brief question were several very important points. It is important that the sector skills councils engage effectively with the higher level skills. One of the things that Lord Leitch told us, very politely, was that some do it better than others. Some have engaged enormously well with higher education institutions because that is where their employers have said that the problem lies. We need to ensure that all sector skills councils do that as appropriate to their industries. Other initiatives, such as academies, are being developed; I think that there is going to be one for the nuclear industry. That is another way in which employers and providers can collaborate to meet the whole range of skills that are needed within a sector. [Interruption.] Of course, we must recognise the need for cross-sectoral courses to be available where appropriate, not just courses in individual sectors. And I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) for prompting me on that point from a sedentary position.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Is he aware that the Learning and Skills Council is causing mayhem among local training providers in areas like mine, with its constant chopping and changing of strategy and endless series of short-term contracts, now followed by a “big is beautiful” phase in which it is awarding contracts to large private sector providers who are very good at writing out the applications but walk away when they find, often predictably, that they cannot deliver? May I appeal to him to encourage the LSC to be a bit more consistent in its approach and to use local training providers where they are up to the job and capable?

I certainly hope that that is not the universal picture across the country. I will be happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the particular issues that have given rise to his concern. We need to recognise that a move towards a more demand-led system of skills is a move away from the “predict and provide” approach based on saying, “We will work out how many places we want and give you a contract for them”, to something that is much more closely tailored to what employers need. In that sense, over time there will in any case be quite a fundamental change to the relationship between the flow of funds and the providers of training, which should mean that we get a closer match between what is provided and what employers want.

I welcome much of what the Secretary of State has laid before the House today. In his statement he said, “We will step up the drive to encourage employers, large and small, to sign the skills pledge to benefit their staff.” Given that the Government are probably one of the largest employers in this country, particularly through Her Majesty’s armed forces, I urge the Secretary of State to meet the Defence Secretary to discuss the number of armed forces personnel who, because of overstretch, are unable to attend reskilling, upskilling and continuing professional development courses as a result of those courses being cancelled, or of there not being enough personnel to fill them.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will see any Secretary of State whose Department is too tardy in signing up to the skills pledge. Most Departments are already signed up and we need to ensure that that extends to all reasonable parts of public service. The armed forces have done a good job in many areas, particularly with regard to apprenticeships, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise particular issues with me, I shall certainly look into them.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and it is clear that the Government are seriously addressing an important national problem. The problem is not new; some 20 years ago Sig Prais and Claus Moser drew attention to it, making stark comparisons between Britain and the continent of Europe concerning skills in particular, but also education and skills in the broader sense. Is it not possible that we are trying to invent our own solution to a problem when obvious solutions might be available abroad? Should we not just look at the most successful countries on the continent of Europe and start to imitate them directly in order to ensure that we achieve in the way that they do? Employers would not then simply employ continental Europeans who already have the skills necessary, while leaving our own people unemployed.

I believe that Lord Leitch looked at international experience as well as the approach taken in this country. It is true that the issue of skills has been a problem with the British economy for a long time—certainly since the latter part of the 19th century, at the very least—and it has been raised recently. Sir Claus Moser was heavily influential on the literacy campaign that was launched with such success four or five years ago.

My view is that for too long we have not identified properly the partnership between the Government, individuals and employers that can deliver successful and sustainable improvements in skills. Over the years, we have perhaps lurched between thinking that the public sector could work it all out for itself, and putting unrealistic expectations on the private sector to pay for everything. I believe that the statement I made today gets the balance right, and it should be the basis for real achievement in the future.

Will the Secretary of State closely examine access to training in rural areas? In North Cornwall, despite excellent work by schools, we still have people making a 100-mile-a-day round trip from places like Bude to Truro in order to access specialist courses. Will he bear in mind the provision of training and upskilling in deprived rural areas such as North Cornwall?

That is an important issue. It is not simply a matter for urban areas, and I recognise the problems set out by the hon. Gentleman. There will be some funds in the system to assist in areas in cases of special need, which can include matters such as transport. I hope that as we flesh out the detail of our plans, he will see that we recognise the problems in areas such as his.

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend to his new post. In doing so, I draw his attention to the work of primary schools in my constituency that have set up adult learning centres in the community. Parents in those schools have been able to add to qualifications, or gain them if they had none, leading to their gaining employment. We can really target and attack deprivation in the most deprived areas in our communities by using local centres such as primary schools. I commend that work to my right hon. Friend.

Our colleague, my hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, has visited a primary school in my constituency and seen for himself how the process is working. It works because it is in an environment where people feel confident and able to come forward and engage with what is going on, and by doing so they are able to assist in the education of their own children. Examples of that process were shown to my hon. Friend when he came to visit. We are able to target such communities, and I urge the Secretary of State, when he is considering future funding, to make it easier for schools to set up such adult learning centres.

I am delighted to hear what my hon. Friend said. I am passionate about the ability to tackle family poverty and improve social mobility through improving adult skills. In my constituency, one of the least expected but most welcome effects of Sure Start has been on the aspirations of parents who have been involved with it. Many of them, by becoming involved in Sure Start, have gone on to jobs as nursery nurses or classroom assistants, and then feed back that experience to their own children, affecting their expectations of what can be achieved. We need to extend the type of experience my hon. Friend talks about as widely as possible.

One group of people who desperately need functional literacy and numeracy and skills training are offenders serving custodial sentences. How will the new universal adult careers service, the prison education service and the unions work together to ensure that every person leaving prison on the completion of a custodial sentence will be fit for work, and that employers are persuaded to overcome their very natural reluctance to offer a job to somebody who has been in prison?

That is a very important issue. The Government set out last year, in a document called “Next Steps”, our response to some of the challenges of reducing reoffending, and we need to build on that work. In a previous capacity, I was enormously impressed by the work of the National Grid Transco scheme, which gets young offenders into work by essentially guaranteeing them jobs if they successfully complete training as they leave an institution. Through such mechanisms and the corporate alliance supported by the Ministry of Justice, I hope that, as well as generally raising the level of skills among offenders, we can extend the direct routes of offenders into work, because the reoffending rates involved are dramatically lower than those under many of the schemes we have tried in the past.