My Lords, I am sorry that I am out from the subs’ bench here. This amendment is quite straightforward and an act of unprecedented generosity from the Liberal Democrats because it was a clear commitment in our 2019 election manifesto. It is a practical way of dealing with some of the problems that we are looking at here. We would create a personal education and skills account, or a skills wallet. We can go through the amendment in fine detail, but I think my noble friend Lady Janke will be in a much better position to do that than I will. The principle behind this is that you have a degree of money that you are in control of to help you update or change your skills.
Anybody of my age who looks at the various changes in the work environment will know that you not only had to upgrade your skills, you had to change them. The world is a very different place. Let us face it—everything we hear at the moment suggests that the world of work and the skills required for it are liable to change rapidly over the next few years. There is the technical revolution and the digital revolution. Will they continue? Will they evolve? There is also the green revolution going on in the world of work.
The level of possible change required within those ideas is massive. Having the ability to say, “Yes, I have at certain times the ability to change my skill set,” must have some attraction to all those listening. When the Minister responds, I would like her to let us know the Government’s thinking on that idea.
We have given the Government a series of options here; whether they will decide to pay us the ultimate compliment by taking our ideas, I do not know. The ones that we have down here are that you can upgrade, you can change and you are in charge. Maybe you could argue about the times at which you might intervene, but not by much. They are reasonably well paced throughout somebody’s working life. There is an initial stage, then a few years in, then a few years more and then towards the end, as—we are told—we will all be working longer. Surely, that is about right.
I think the fact that you have good careers guidance going in with this is very important. These are components that have to be involved to keep somebody working productively for longer. They come in together and the person has a greater degree of control. There is less bureaucracy as you can choose where you go. You can go to regular employers and trainers, who are identified as being of a certain standard. That is the idea behind this.
I hope that the Government will be quite open to these ideas—and possibly this amendment. Who knows? I am not putting a great deal of money on that but, hey, we live in hope. If we could find out the Government’s thinking on this, we would all be slightly better informed for the next stage of Bill. I beg to move.