My Lords, I support the amendments that the noble Baroness has put forward. I draw attention to my role as a non-executive director of the Careers & Enterprise Company.
I very much welcome my noble friend the Minister to her place on the Front Bench. I wish her all the luck and enjoyment in what I know is a fantastic department. Like her, I also thank her predecessor for her hard work and commitment to the role when she held it.
I will speak very briefly in support of Amendments 3, 7, 17 and 64, to which I added my name with great pleasure. I also welcome government Amendments 5 and 6 and thank my noble friend and her civil servants for the discussions we have had. As she said in introducing those amendments, we will need a workforce with the
right skills. As we just heard outlined so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, local skills plans should take into account national skills strategy requirements, particularly on green jobs and net-zero strategy.
The impending COP 26 conference next month would be a perfect place. If the Minister feels unable to accept Amendment 64, perhaps she might be able to encourage her fellow Ministers, particularly in BEIS, that next month’s conference would be the right venue for an announcement on a national skills strategy for green jobs.
As we have just seen in recent weeks, and will continue to see, the transition to net zero is going to be a huge moment of both opportunity and challenges for the whole of our economy. I am pretty sure already from the debate on the Bill in this House that it is agreed on all sides that the education sector is vital in training and retraining the current and future workforce to have the right skills to deliver the transition to net zero—which is why these amendments are important, why I welcome the government amendments and why I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say about Amendment 64.