7. Statement by the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning: The Employability Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:12 pm on 20 March 2018.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 5:12, 20 March 2018

Thank you, Mohammad. I think some of the targets have been set out in the document, so you can be assured of the direction of travel there. I will be looking at producing more granularity; I think it's important that we look at the regional impact, and what it looks like regionally, so we will be really monitoring this in a very coherent way, but we'll be doing it systematically over a long period of time. So, I hope you'll hold me to account on that because it will be important for me to make sure that we are delivering, and one of the things we will be doing is making sure that we pull together all of the different large organisations that are working in this space. So, we've already spoken to the Department for Work and Pensions so that we're not all chasing after the same people who may be economically inactive; that we're co-ordinating our efforts.

The apprenticeship levy: well, wouldn't it have been lovely if the UK Government had actually consulted with us before they introduced it? Because that is part of the problem. It was just imposed on us, and now we're having to work with the system we have. I'm not sure if I would be promoting the voucher system in England if I were you. There has been a massive collapse in the number of apprenticeships in England in recent months, so I'm not sure if that's a model we want to be following, but what we will not compromise on is the quality of apprenticeships in Wales.

On the construction sector: we've been doing a lot of work in this sector. Qualifications Wales has been looking at this in detail: what is it that employers are looking for? What are the standards and qualities that they're looking for? And they've been working with FE institutions, but one of the things that we will be asking is that FE institutions will respond. We're asking them to respond to the regional skills partnership. So, we've got all of these employers now telling us what they need, we now need to make sure that that is transferred and explained to further education colleges and that they then respond to that, so that we can provide those employers with the skills that they're looking for.

And just finally on disabled people in particular: we've got a lot of work to do in this area. Only 49 per cent of disabled people in Wales are in employment. We've got a lot of work to do here. It's really interesting: when you ask employers to help, a lot of them are willing to do that, and there is a lot of support that the DWP can give as well. So, we'll be doing a lot more work in that particular area, I can assure you.