My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 80 from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, but I also strongly support Amendment 76 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, and the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Rooker. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Layard; we are among some of the giants of the education world here.
If the Government are serious about wishing to reskill and upskill the nation, lifelong learning is an absolutely essential component. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that “lifelong” is the word we are more used to—but I agree with him that we should sort out before we go much further whether it is lifelong or lifetime. As we shall discuss later, adults are much less likely to wish to take on repayable loans, so the right to free education up to level 3 is a very positive measure.
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As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, set out so eloquently, we also strongly support the idea that apprenticeship training funding should be spent on those beginning levels 2 and 3. These are essential stepping stones to higher levels, but too often overlooked. Apprenticeships always used to be about people starting out in employment, not about middle managers. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, set out, the numbers of young people starting apprenticeships has declined appallingly; government policy is simply not working in this respect.
I would also like to see support for level 1 qualifications, which can be the eye-opener for people who have been left behind by traditional education, who have never been awarded any national certificate but find themselves with a first taste of recognised educational achievement. It can be a really powerful incentive. I remember when NVQs first came out and we were giving NVQ level 1 to care and health workers, there were people with tears in their eyes because they had never before been awarded a national qualification. It can be an incentive; we must not overlook the lower levels in the interests of looking after the higher levels.
Amendment 80 refers to a qualification up to level 3 which, again, would cover the early stages of training. I tend to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, that we should not really have stopped at retirement age—just think of the number of skills that we pensioners in this Chamber have had to learn over recent months. It also makes provision for those who need to retrain in another business or discipline, whether or not they already have a level 3 qualification. The old system of ELQs should be a thing of the past.
We need to make provision for people to acquire new skills as the employment market changes. Currently, for instance, the hospitality sector is woefully short of workers, so why could not someone who has been an office worker, possibly made redundant, not be given the opportunity to reskill where there are jobs, even though they may have substantial skills in a different field? But of course employers—particularly SMEs, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, pointed out—need to be incentivised to take on younger people. The funding proposed in these amendments should significantly help in enabling them to do so. The Government need to look positively on all the issues that are encompassed in these two amendments, such as lifelong learning and reskilling.