What does the King’s Speech mean for education and skills?
Today (17 July 2024) the King’s speech outlined the new government’s legislative agenda for the year, highlighting an exciting and welcome focus on skills and further education.
This builds from Labour’s manifesto commitments and sits are the core of its mission to break down barriers to opportunity.
It’s great to see many of techUK’s asks being given credence and taken on board in the King’s Speech. This comes from our Seven Tech Priorities paper, which built on our foundational UK Tech Plan published in 2023.
Please check out our analysis of the rest of the King's Speech, and what the rest of the 40 Bills mean for the tech sector.
Reform of the apprenticeship levy
The apprenticeship levy is an important part of the changes to raise apprenticeship quality and supports techUK members to make a long-term and sustainable investment in skills and training.
But we have long maintained that the levy needs reviewing. £2.6bn levy funds expired in 2020-22 which is money that was not invested back into businesses. The current system requires businesses to contribute hundreds of millions of pounds into a pot, but it only allows these funds to be spent in an overly restricted way. For example, businesses cannot use the money to fund any courses that are shorter than one year in duration.
In our UK Tech Plan, we emphasised that more that can be done to support both employers and learners, including the importance of increasing the flexibly of the apprenticeship levy. We recommended reforming the apprenticeship levy into a broader skills and training levy, and including in scope other forms of accredited training, that is more closely aligned to the practical and operational realities of jobs. The broadening of the apprenticeship levy could include training provided in-house by companies and form part of the ‘off-the-job’ training requirements for apprentices.
Labour has committed to reforming the levy to a “growth and skills levy” and now we need to ensure that the reformed levy does not hinder the progression of apprenticeships but allows businesses to make full use of their levy funds.
Skills England Bill
A new body, Skills England, will be created which will put “partnership with employers at its heart”. This was promised in the lead-up to the election. techUK supports the establishment of Skills England, as currently there is no mechanism for strategic oversight of the skills system. The body will aim to bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs across the country. The Bill will transfer functions from Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to Skills England.
We have proposed, alongside The Skills Federation (also known as the Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards), that the mission for Skills England should be to oversee how government is developing and maintaining a world class skills system and advising on how to ensure this supports growth and contributes to greater equality. To do this, we believe Skills England must be a statutory but independent social partnership body which adopts a strategic oversight and advisory role, with a high level of independence from central government. To assess impact, the body should publish an annual report describing the progress government has made, highlighting progress in closing skills gaps and tackling shortages, examining progress on levelling up and equity, and setting out the challenges ahead.
Interestingly, FEWeek highlights that there is also no mention of Skills England’s responsibilities in areas of higher education, such as the incoming lifelong learning entitlement.
Employment Rights Bill
The government announced the Bill to implement its New Deal for Working People, with the Bill scheduled to be introduced within its first 100 days. The Bill is expected to include provisions including banning “exploitative” zero-hours contracts, ending “fire and rehire” and “fire and replace” practices, updating trade union rules in the workplace and establishing a single Fair Work Agency.
Creating a fairer and more robust framework for work is shared by techUK and its members, but ensuring that legislation is successful in delivering on this ambition whilst reaping the benefits of new workplace innovations will require government to work closely with both businesses and workers.
techUK was a part of the TUC taskforce looking an AI (Regulation and Employment Rights) Bill, alongside including the Ada Lovelace Institute, the Alan Turing Institute, Connected By Data, UKBlackTech, the British Computer Society, CIPD, the RAI UK, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Prospect, Community, CWU/UTAW, USDAW, GMB and cross-party MPs. The Bill focused on the use of AI technology in the workplace and creates a range of new responsibilities for companies deploying the technology as well as providing additional rights for employees and trade unions. techUK’s input focused on providing advice to the TUC on the workability of any legislation.
Get involved in techUK's policy work for the new government as we explore approaches to apprenticeships and creating an AI-ready education system.
Authors
Nimmi Patel
Nimmi works on all things skills, education, and future of work policy, focusing on upskilling and retraining. Nimmi is also an Advisory Board member of Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (digit). The Centre research aims to increase understanding of how digital technologies are changing work and the implications for employers, workers, job seekers and governments.
