My Lords, if there was an outbreak of consensus across the Committee on the previous amendments, I am afraid I am going to ruin the party in this group. If the aim of the Bill is to expand opportunities and horizons in terms of training and skills acquisition that will allow wider access to jobs, I think we need to be wary of any attempts at narrowing what is on offer, especially if it is being driven by satisfying political hobby-horses. Surely that is what this series of amendments does, in a way, in trying to limit post-16 technical education and training by aligning them with net-zero, climate change and biodiversity targets. I am opposed to them all.
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For some time, we have heard from Governments—not just the present one but previous Administrations—a lot of hyperbole about the green jobs revolution. I have yet to see many of those jobs materialise; the targets set rarely mean much. I have no problem at all with new skills being developed or taught potentially for these green jobs—for example in solar, or electric vehicle maintenance at Wrexham college, my local college, which I was delighted to hear about. Well done to the college for having the foresight to do that, but I wonder about the implications beyond that.
I want to ask the signatories to the amendments whether they would oppose those who, never mind training in electric vehicle maintenance, want to just be car mechanics working on those old-fashioned evil diesel vehicles. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, talked about HGV drivers—are they allowed? They are hardly going to fit in with the net-zero carbon targets. What about the nuclear industry? I happen to think that nuclear is a good source of energy for environmentalists, but most of the environmentalists I know disagree with me. Will the amendments approve of training, for example, in mining engineering in Cornwall in order to access the local lithium that is so important for battery-driven technology, or is mining verboten? After all, valuable job opportunities in Cumbrian mining have been put on hold after eco-lobbying stopped Whitehaven creating domestic coking possibilities for the steel industry.
What about fracking? I know that not everybody agrees with me; that is why it is a debate. There is now a moratorium on fracking, but say, for example, that that moratorium was lifted by the Government and it was revealed that this was a safe source of energy that would create new jobs and therefore need new skills and training. I am just not sure whether this would fit in with these amendments. In other words, will they allow young people to train as pilots in the airline and tourism industries, in plastics, or in construction and planning if those areas clash with green targets? Noble Lords get the gist of what I am saying.
The noble Baroness talked about the need for reskilling to transition from carbon-intensive industries. At the moment, there is a political attempt at forcing the
closure of those carbon-intensive industries; they are being closed for political reasons. I personally was involved in fighting Margaret Thatcher over the closure of the coal industry, and now I find myself trying to defend industries that progressives and radicals argue should be closed.
I think there is a broader issue here of a philosophical clash between an ambitious industrial growth strategy—which, by the way, I admire; at least the Government are trying to go for it as part of a levelling-up agenda, and I hope that the Bill might help to reskill and upskill many workers and young people as part of that ambitious industrial growth—and the philosophical association around environmentalism with sustainability, low growth, limiting innovation and so on. There is at least a tension there.
I have another couple of points, particularly in relation to some of the things I have heard so far in Committee. On education, at least some of us have worried historically when Governments of all stripes have interfered in the schools curriculum to push a particular political agenda. I always worry when NGOs or lobby groups attempt to inveigle their way into schools to push a particular political agenda.
However, I am no keener on the pushing of a political agenda by this Bill, or the politicising of the skills agenda. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, called this mainstreaming, but I would say that it is an attempt to shoehorn the climate emergency into all areas of FE and training. Practically, it feels like an environmentally correct net zero straitjacket that will limit choices and create ever more hurdles in the way of accrediting courses, apprenticeships and so on.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Knight, who said that further education had no national curriculum, which was very unfortunate, as it meant that we could not change it. To me, that is like hijacking the national curriculum, and that should not be done either. It is a sort of brainwashing—or at least an attempt to brainwash.
Many rank-and-file lecturers in higher education, although not necessarily the trade union bureaucrats, are totally exasperated by the institutional signing up of their universities and colleges—usually by their HR or PR departments trying to earn brownie points—to all sorts of politicised charters and strategies. They complain that that can often compromise academic freedom, mandating one view of the world in relation to sustainability, with no debate allowed. For example, lecturers in architecture, engineering and economics have all said that because their institution is signed up to some sustainability charter, their views, which clash with that, get them into trouble.
The last thing I want to do is to impose these orthodoxies on the further education sector. Those who say that the only reason they are pushing this is because it is what students really want, rather than what people in the House of Lords want, are being a bit opportunist, to say the least. I am not convinced, because this is a Bill about training, and we should stick to that.