My hon. Friend makes a very good point.
I want to comment on each element of the rebalancing that the Business Secretary mentioned. The first relates to productivity. We have the worst productivity in the G7, save for Japan. There was some fanfare around the Treasury-BIS co-sponsored productivity plan published on Friday—[Interruption.] Ministers might chunter, but having taken account of that amazing plan, the Office for Budget Responsibility has downgraded its forecast for productivity per hour for next year and the following three years. I am not surprised. Two key ways of increasing productivity are to sort out the skills system, which is simply not doing enough to resolve the chronic skills shortages in our economy, and to boost business investment.
After half a decade of Tory-led Government, the CBI warned in its annual skills survey this week of ongoing skills shortages acting as a drag on productivity. Its deputy director general could not have been clearer yesterday when she said that
“firms are facing a skills emergency now, threatening to starve economic growth. Worryingly, it’s those high-growth, high-value
sectors with the most potential which are the ones under most pressure. That includes construction, manufacturing, science, engineering and technology.”
Of course we all want to see more apprenticeships, and we support the proposed apprenticeship levy, but we need to see far more action from the Government to ensure that all those apprenticeships are of sufficient quality to reduce the skills shortage. More than one in five apprentices are currently receiving no formal training whatsoever, and almost four in 10 employers do not regard the qualifications they are providing as apprenticeships, even though the Government deem them to be apprenticeship qualifications. Also, there are simply not enough people doing qualifications at level 3 and above.