My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. Together with the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan of Cotes and Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, I have tabled Amendments 3, 7, 17 and 64 in this group. Amendments 3, 7 and 17 were tabled and discussed in Committee, but I am delighted that I do not have to press them and the case for them in the House today because of Amendment 6, to which the Minister has just spoken.
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I record my gratitude to the Minister, her predecessor and the Bill team for listening to the points made throughout the House in Committee, and for the very productive meetings that led to the Government recognising the need to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities of our commitments to net zero and biodiversity loss in setting local skills improvement plans. In one amendment they have managed to cover comprehensively—and rather more elegantly and effectively—all the points in the three amendments we put down.
So I am extremely grateful, but when the Bill was introduced, yet again, as we have seen time after time—in the Pension Schemes Bill and the Financial Services Bill—there was no mention at all of net zero, climate change or the challenges for the green agenda of the future. On each of those Bills, we managed to persuade the Government to come forward, but we should not need to do this through a laborious process of Back-Bench amendments. If the green agenda is as high among the Government’s priorities as they say it is, they should be looking at every Bill and every policy and making sure that they are taking the opportunities and doing what is necessary to further the broad aims in this area. The economy of the future will mean a shift to green jobs and a sustainable industrial model, which requires a skills and education framework that aligns with our net-zero and environmental goals. The Government’s amendment now ensures that local skills improvement plans will be approved and published only where green jobs have been considered in the development of the plan.
With climate and nature considerations factored into the new jobs and skills framework at local level, we can ensure that we have the right skills and education to meet our key national commitments, including achieving net zero by 2050. It is extremely encouraging that the Government have now recognised the importance of embedding net zero and nature considerations into the framework. Doing so will contribute to a successful economic future and employment opportunities across the country, and to achieving our climate and biodiversity commitments.
The Minister will not be surprised, having given us something, that we ask for more. I therefore turn now to my Amendment 64, which proposes the publication of a green skills strategy so that, as well as ensuring that the issues raised are considered at local level, we have a national forward plan for the jobs and skills of the future. This will be essential if the UK is to take advantage of the great opportunities for young people and those wanting to reskill and retrain, and it was highlighted as a priority for 2021 by the Climate Change Committee in its progress report to Parliament this year.
There are real competitive advantages for the UK in being an early mover in developing the skills and innovations needed to transition to net zero. The think tank Onward predicts that 1.7 million jobs could be created in net-zero industries by 2030, and the Government themselves have set an ambition for 2 million green jobs in the UK by 2030. But we now have to plan ahead if we are to enable a just transition, so that
those in high-carbon sectors can reskill and have certainty about their futures. By linking local skills development with a national strategy, we can avoid locking in carbon-intensive career options that will not have a long-term future in the net-zero world.
As I said, there is great and widespread backing for a green skills strategy, not just from people interested in the “green” bit of skills, such as the Green Jobs Taskforce, which recommended in its report that we must develop a comprehensive and holistic view of green jobs and skills challenges. The Institute for Government has recommended that the Government should develop a green skills plan. Business groups such as Aldersgate and the CBI have called for a skills strategy that would embed sustainability and net-zero delivery, provide certainty and encourage inward investment. A national skills road map would enable and encourage different sectors, businesses and education providers to plan ahead. This is something that the further education sector has also asked for: an overall 10-year education and skills strategy.
I recognise that there might be different views on which would be the correct body to introduce and develop such a strategy, but it is really important that the Minister gives us some insight today into the Government’s thinking in this area, and some recognition of where skills gaps have led to real problems in delivery—goodness me, we have seen that in recent weeks. We need to understand how the Government are thinking about taking this forward and whether they would support the Green Jobs Taskforce’s recommendation of a UK-wide body with national representation to co-ordinate between central and local government and business to ensure momentum and coherence on workforce, including progress on delivery. I know that in Committee the Minister suggested that the Skills and Productivity Board might be the appropriate body, but I was concerned that the remit letter to that body again did not have any mention of green skills and net zero. I wonder whether the Minister could comment on that and whether it could be included.
In conclusion, to tackle the challenges and to benefit from the significant economic opportunities of the transition to net zero, we need an ambitious strategy. We have been promised an overall all-encompassing net-zero strategy from the Government before COP 26. Will the Minister commit to including a green skills strategy as part of that overall one?